Oral Answers to Questions

HOME DEPARTMENT

The Secretary of State was asked—

Law of Provocation

Vera Baird: What steps he is taking to implement the recommendations of the Law Commission on reforming the law of provocation; and if he will make a statement.

Paul Goggins: The Law Commission's provisional proposals would mean a major change from the way the law works at present. We will want to look at the final report and recommendations carefully before we consider taking any action.

Vera Baird: The provisional proposals are not expected to change and they have been greeted with unusual unanimity among the senior judiciary, the academic world and many organisations that deal with domestic violence. Can my hon. Friend undertake that, if the proposals continue to meet with widespread favour, an early legislative vehicle for them will be sought?

Paul Goggins: May I begin by acknowledging my hon. and learned Friend's substantial contribution on this issue and the campaign against domestic violence generally? She was able to share many of her experiences and insights in Committee when the Bill was debated, for which I pay tribute to her. We have debated the issue on a number of occasions recently and I can tell her that we will consider carefully the Law Commission's final report.
	It was because we know that this is a difficult area that we asked the Law Commission to carry out its report. Based on the provisional proposals, we know the intended consequences, but we need to consider very carefully whether there might be some unwanted and unintended consequences, such as gangland killers being able to cite provocation in their defence or perhaps problems with honour killings, which we debated in Committee. I beg my hon. and learned Friend to be patient and I give her the assurance that we will consider the issues very carefully indeed.

Immigration Advisers

Peter Pike: What measures he is taking against legal advisers facilitating unfounded claims for (a) asylum and (b) applications for work permits.

Des Browne: An unfounded immigration application is not in itself proof of any wrongdoing on the part of the legal adviser or, indeed, of any adviser involved. However, the provision of immigration advice is a matter of concern to the Government. The Lord Chancellor has taken steps through the Legal Services Commission to improve the quality of advice provided by publicly funded solicitors and the immigration services commissioner is taking steps to raise the quality of legal advice provided by those whom he regulates. It is, of course, a criminal offence to provide immigration advice when unqualified so to do and it is also a criminal offence for anyone, including a legal adviser, to facilitate entry to the United Kingdom in contravention of the immigration rules. Evidence of any such activity will be thoroughly investigated by the immigration and nationality directorate, which will take appropriate action.

Peter Pike: I would certainly not like to suggest that there were some dodgy solicitors, but there is clear evidence of some solicitors dragging cases along for a long time and misleading those whom they are representing on asylum and work permit cases. How many prosecutions have there been and, if there have been any, what has been the outcome of the action taken?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend, with characteristic shrewdness and subtlety, is right to emphasise the importance of confidence in advice in this area of public policy, particularly from the legal profession. As a matter of fact, 12 immigration advisers have been prosecuted by the immigration service in 2003–04 and 11 convictions were secured. In 2003, the office for the supervision of solicitors, the disciplinary arm of the Law Society, took disciplinary action against three solicitors in connection with immigration advice, one of whom was struck off, one given an indefinite suspension and one fined. Furthermore, the Legal Services Commission advises that, in London alone, 96 firms did not have their contract extended in the current financial year.

Julian Brazier: How many of those 12 cases referred to work permits? Does the Minister accept that the quadrupling of the number of work permits each year, including for a new category of completely unqualified people in sectors such as the leisure industry, is simply an invitation for such advisers to suggest to those already here that it is a good way of getting round immigration rules?

Des Browne: I am not in a position to answer the hon. Gentleman's specific question in relation to numbers. If the figures are available, I will write to him with the information, though I am not sure that that sort of information is collected separately. The main thrust of his attack, of course, is about the increasing number of people permitted to work in this country through permits in response to a set of circumstances that he may find difficulty in identifying—a growing labour market in which there are difficulties with the availability of skills and labour in some sectors.
	I know that, as part of its five-point plan, the hon. Gentleman's party announced that it would put quotas on work permits. Of course, to do that it would have to turn its back on its traditional approach to the labour market, which is to allow the labour market to generate demand. It may well intend to do that. If so, perhaps at some stage it will tell the House and the country how it proposes to put such a control on the work force in the United Kingdom, where 2 million more people are now working who were not in 1997.

Tony McWalter: Does my hon. Friend accept that the thrust of the question is about inefficiency on the part of legal officers rather than criminal activity? Does he also accept that when it comes to evaluating efficiency, the scandal of firms wasting loads of money before finally telling their clients, "Your best bet is to go and see your MP", needs structural correction in the legal profession?

Des Browne: As Minister with responsibility for this matter, I am concerned about inefficiency, bad advice and possible illegal advice. That is why, in answering the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike), I identified a number of criminal prosecutions and went on to speak about the other steps that are being taken.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter) will know that we intend to use the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill, which comes before the House later today, to increase the powers of the immigration services commissioner and improve his ability to regulate designated professional bodies. There are also provisions for unqualified advisers working for solicitors to be adequately supervised, which goes to the heart of the issue that my hon. Friend identified. Indeed, there will be a new criminal offence of advertising for an unqualified person to be an immigration adviser and a new power to enter the premises of suspected rogue advisers. It is the Government's view that we will then have an array of powers that will attack both inefficiency and illegality in advice.

Dominic Grieve: May I first pass on the apologies of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) for not being present this afternoon?
	I note that the Minister neatly side-stepped the issue of work permits. Does he agree that there is absolutely no reason for legal advisers to be involved in applications for work permits? They certainly were not in the past. Does he also agree that legal advisers are now associated with applications for work permits because of the perception that the misuse of the work permit system can facilitate entry into this country, which was exactly what went on with self-employed people in Bucharest—

Des Browne: That was entry clearance.

Dominic Grieve: It was entry clearance for the purpose of working in this country. Would the Minister now like to answer the question with specific reference to work permits?

Des Browne: I answered the question asked by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) with specific reference to work permits, but I could not give him the specific information that he required. As I have not managed to get that information since I gave that answer, I shall have to write to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) if he is interested in that information as well.
	The point about legal or other advice on whether someone is fit to have a work permit is well made. It is perhaps not necessary for people to take advice because the work permit application system is comparatively straightforward, but of course the question did not relate only to legal advice, but to advice per se. I have no idea why people should be motivated to take legal advice on an application for a work permit. We would have to ask them that. The hon. Gentleman is a member of the legal profession and he will not want to be involved in closing that business down to his colleagues or perhaps to himself, if he still practises.
	If people choose to take that advice, it is a matter entirely for them. The Government's responsibility is to ensure that that advice, on immigration matters when it is given, is legal, efficient and, if it involves public money, offers good value. I do not think that the Tory party is suggesting in opposition that, were it in government, it would interfere with people's free choice on who should advise them.

Spanish Passport Holders

Harry Barnes: How many Spanish passport holders he estimates are resident in England and Wales.

Fiona Mactaggart: Figures taken from the UK labour force survey show that, for the period December 2003 to February 2004, there were an estimated 44,000 nationals of Spain resident in England and Wales.

Harry Barnes: Is that not a fair swap with Spain, in that there are an estimated 300,000 UK passport holders in Spain, plus all the holidaymakers? Should not we consider these things in perspective—in terms of how the movement of labour throughout the European Union benefits everyone involved?

Fiona Mactaggart: My hon. Friend is right that the movement of labour throughout the EU has helped the prosperity of all the countries in the Union. It is striking that, since Spain entered the EU, it has become a country of net migration from other EU countries, unlike what was predicted before it entered.

Humfrey Malins: Is the Minister aware of a growing problem: numbers of South American economic migrants who are not entitled to come here can, and readily do, obtain in Madrid or Barcelona Spanish passports and travel documentation, on which they do a bit of work and then pass relatively easily, although illegally, into this country? Are her immigration officials well aware of that growing practice and receiving extra training to cope with it? Does she believe that last year's official figures for such fraudulent entry attempts tell us the whole truth?

Fiona Mactaggart: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the UK leads the world in passport detection technology. I am sure that he will be reassured by the fact that, following enlargement of the EU, we are not only improving the training of all our officers but checking every passport offered by an EU citizen when seeking entry to the United Kingdom.

Humfrey Malins: What about South America?

Fiona Mactaggart: The hon. Gentleman referred to passports held by those not entitled to EU passports.

Humfrey Malins: South America.

Fiona Mactaggart: The hon. Gentleman keeps saying "South America", and I am responding in this way because he made the claim that people are entering on EU passports to which they are not entitled. I am confident that, if his allegations are true, our checking and detection mechanisms and our good relations with the Government of Spain and other EU Governments will mean that we can stop that practice.

Dungavel Detention Centre

Alistair Carmichael: When he next plans to meet the Children's Commissioner for Scotland to discuss the operation of the Dungavel detention centre.

Ann McKechin: If he will make a statement on his recent visit to Dungavel detention centre.

David Blunkett: I visited Dungavel on 2 July and found the conditions and facilities entirely satisfactory. I was impressed, as I know the hon. Gentleman was when he visited the centre in May, by the caring and dedicated staff who work there. The issue of accommodation centres is a reserved matter, but in his usual generous way, my hon. Friend the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration has agreed to meet the Children's Commissioner for Scotland, Professor Kathleen Marshall. I am sure that that will be a suitable occasion for her to express her concerns.

Alistair Carmichael: I thank the Home Secretary for that answer. I confirm that during my visit to the Dungavel detention centre recently I was impressed by the standard of the staff and the care that they exhibited. He may be aware that the Children's Commissioner for Scotland recently described the detention of children in Dungavel as "morally upsetting". She is said to be considering taking legal action to end it. Would it not be better if the Home Secretary accepted that holding families with young children in the same institution as adults—some of whom have just been released from lengthy prison sentences and are awaiting deportation—is wrong and ought to be ended sooner rather than later?

David Blunkett: First, I ought to make it clear, so that there is no doubt in anyone's mind, that the individuals described by the hon. Gentleman are separated from the families, as he will have found on his visit in May. Secondly, of course we accept that in an ideal world it would be appropriate not to have children in removal centres. That matter concerns retaining the unity of the family. I am prepared—my hon. Friend the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration and I have been discussing this—to consider whether we could use tracking and electronic methodology so that we could take families out of such accommodation centres, and whether we could provide more concentrated facilities for those for whom that would not be suitable, such as people who would abscond and use their children as an excuse for not being available for removal. These are difficult issues, but we have to take public policy into account and deal with the often contradictory pressures that come to bear when we are trying to remove people who, because of the very nature of the challenge facing them, are unlikely to co-operate.

Ann McKechin: I, too, have visited Dungavel recently as a member of the Scottish Affairs Committee, and I join my right hon. Friend in commending the staff there on their work and professionalism. To pick up his comments on detention of children, I noticed that, because of the presence of single men and women at the centre, the security regime has to be fairly tight and restrictive. Does he think that there is a convincing argument in favour of detaining families in an entirely separate unit where security arrangements can be much less restrictive, especially given that the risk of families absconding seems to be far less than that of single people doing so?

David Blunkett: One consequence of the investment in substantially increasing the number of removal places is that we can reconfigure where we place single people and families, which will help in future. The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration and I have discussed with the Churches and the Scottish Trades Union Congress the potential for reconfiguring in a way that meets my hon. Friend's understandable concerns. I thank her for her constant interest in the matter. The challenge that we face, as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) spelled out in his debate last Thursday in Westminster Hall, is that some people who should know better talk a lot of nonsense about Dungavel.

Annabelle Ewing: It seems to me that the Home Secretary is saying, in effect, that he plans to ignore the fundamental concern of the Children's Commissioner for Scotland, the unions, the Churches and civic Scotland, which would be quite contemptible. He specifically mentioned electronic tagging as an alternative to detention. Will he clarify whether he plans to tag children of asylum seekers who have committed no crime whatever?

David Blunkett: When I mentioned comments made by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, I was referring to his descriptions of people calling Dungavel a "hell on earth" and politicians—some of whom have presumably never been to Dungavel—describing the centre in totally unacceptable ways. On cue, the hon. Member for Perth (Annabelle Ewing), representing the Scottish National party, accuses us of ignoring the Churches, when I had just said that the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration and I met representatives of the Churches two months ago; of ignoring the STUC, when I had just said that we had met its representatives as well; and of ignoring the Children's Commissioner for Scotland, whom the Minister of State has just agreed to meet. What sort of nonsense is that? I do not mind those who cannot hear not understanding, but those who can should open their ears and listen.

Tom Harris: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, at least for the time being, detention centres are an unwelcome but necessary part of asylum policy? Does he agree also that those who try to focus the debate on the detention of children are simply trying to erect a smokescreen behind which to campaign for the total removal of detention centres, which is a prerequisite to the introduction of the policy that they support—a completely open asylum policy, which is naive and simplistic?

David Blunkett: My hon. Friend is substantially right. Such people also argue that immigration should be a matter for Scotland, not a reserved matter—

Annabelle Ewing: Hear, hear.

David Blunkett: The hon. Lady supports that, but the consequences of such a policy would be very interesting indeed. The Scottish National party would have to put border controls at Hadrian's wall, which would be bizarre. I think that we have now exposed the SNP's policies for what they are.
	It is true that, where the family resists removal, that inevitably ensures that the children have to be held in circumstances—not necessarily only in removal centres—that would be less satisfactory than we would wish. However, it is a choice of the parents. The hon. Member for Perth (Annabelle Ewing) knows that the Government would never contemplate tagging children. To suggest otherwise was a disgrace.

John Lyons: I am sure that the meeting with the children's commissioner will be widely welcomed throughout the political parties. I ask my right hon. Friend to consider one point for that meeting, and that is the question of people being held at Dungavel who are awaiting deportation after completing a sentence. Will he consider how we can remove those people from families and their children at Dungavel?

David Blunkett: Fortunately, we are removing such individuals much more quickly than it is possible to remove families. The legislation that will come before the House later today will further assist us in doing that because it will reduce the unwarranted use of judicial review. However, I take the point, and the expanded removal centre facilities will help us better to segregate those of different categories. To pick up a point made by my hon. Friend, the Minister of State will welcome meeting Professor Kathleen Marshall. He has met her on many occasions because he happened to go to university with her.

Prisons

Teddy Taylor: In how many prisons the population was in excess of the certified normal accommodation on the latest date for which figures are available; and by what percentage the prison population has changed over the past 10 years.

Paul Goggins: There were 81 prisons operating above their certified normal accommodation figure on 30 June 2004. All those prisons are within their operating capacity, which is the total number of prisoners that an establishment can hold, taking into account control, security and the proper operation of the planned regime. The prison population has increased by 54 per cent. since 1994.

Teddy Taylor: The official figures for June, which are published in the weekly review—although the Government have not published figures since 2002–show that 82 of the 141 prisons were above their certified uncrowded capacity, and 11 were operating above their maximum capacity. In Preston and Leicester, overcrowding was classified as 89 per cent. and 83 per cent. Given those facts, is there not a crisis that has to be faced? In particular, will the Minister say why he believes that the number of women prisoners has increased by 173 per cent. in the past 10 years?

Paul Goggins: Eighty-one prisons are above their certified normal accommodation figure, which means that 57 prisons are not above that figure. There is no getting away from the fact that our prisons have been under huge pressure. One of the ways in which we deal with that pressure is by building additional places. That we have continued to do. The operational capacity as of today, is 76,395, which is an increase of more than 500 in recent months.
	I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about the 173 per cent. increase in the number of women offenders going to prison over the past 10 years, but they were sent to prison by sentencers, not by the Government and not by Ministers. However, because of the Government's policies, I can tell him that the number of women in prison today is lower than it was this time last year.

Gareth Thomas: Do the Government have a view of what should be the maximum overall size of the prison population? What signals should the Government be giving the judiciary on the appropriate use of imprisonment?

Paul Goggins: The Government have an idea about that figure. We believe that, if we rebalance our correctional system appropriately so that we ensure that those who need and deserve to be in prison because they have committed the most serious offences are in prison while those who have not committed such serious offences are on community penalties, we can hold a stable prison population below 80,000.

Mark Oaten: I welcome the Minister's genuine commitment to trying to get to grips with the scandal of overcrowding, but may I draw his attention to his own overcrowding targets for this year? They state that in publicly run prisons, overcrowding must not exceed 24 per cent. of the prison population, but in privately run prisons, the figure is 34 per cent. Will he tell the House why, on overcrowding, he has one target for public prisons, but an easier target for private prisons?

Paul Goggins: The private prisons tend to have more modern facilities than the older prison stock that the Prison Service has at its disposal, but the hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. What is most interesting is that, with our commitment to increasing the number of places available, by the end of this year we will have an operational capacity of 77,600, and by the end of next year it will be some 79,400. We are prepared to ensure that we have fit-for-purpose accommodation for those who are sent to prison by sentencers, but we are also building up the alternative, so that sentencers can confidently give people community sentences that are effective.

Cheryl Gillan: The Minister wants to have it both ways. Will he confirm that in order to rebalance the correctional system, as he puts it, and to save money, the Government are proposing to extend the home detention curfew scheme so that offenders serving seven years for drugs offences or street robbery can be set free early? Does he think that that policy will be popular with law-abiding citizens?

Paul Goggins: Yes, I do want it both ways. I want people who need and deserve to be in prison to be in prison, and I want those whose offences are less serious and are first-time offenders to be on community penalties, putting something back into the communities where they have offended.
	I confirm now that this Government have no intention of extending the home detention curfew scheme.

National Crime Squad

David Heath: If he will make a statement on the status of National Crime Squad officers on transfer to the serious organised crime agency; and what surveys his Department has conducted into the views of NCS officers on such transfers in the last year.

Caroline Flint: No decisions have yet been taken with regard to terms and conditions, but we hope to make a statement of approach on this matter shortly. We are undertaking a wide-ranging and inclusive consultation process. I was pleased to visit the NCS office in Wales on 16 June, where I heard the positive views of officers about the creation of the agency. We also discussed some of their concerns about transfer and terms and conditions, and I hope that I offered them some reassurance.

David Heath: I hope so, because this is an important development that the Minister knows we support, although we would perhaps do things slightly differently. Is she aware that, among the Police Federation members in the National Crime Squad, more than 95 per cent. of the 900 officers who responded, out of a total of 1,200, said that they would not be happy to transfer to the NCS full time in the knowledge that it would be absorbed into the new agency; and that, in the first quarter of this year, more than 80 officers have left the NCS? That is very serious, and it means that we are losing highly trained, experienced and able officers from the new agency. Will she now go back to the Police Federation and the individual officers and talk to them about their concerns, so that we can ensure that we start the agency in the best possible way?

Caroline Flint: Of course we want to start the agency in the best possible way. That is why we are not rushing into the situation and why we have a programme team at the Home Office that is working with the NCS and the other component parts of the new agency and is in discussions with the Association of Chief Police Officers. There are also monthly updates and regular bulletins and meetings involving the police officers who currently work with the NCS. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, the terms and conditions package will be guided by the principle that no one should be disadvantaged by moving into the new organisation. I shall be very happy to facilitate a meeting for the hon. Gentleman with Bill Hughes, director general of the NCS.

Women Prisoner Suicides

Meg Munn: What steps he is taking to reduce the number of suicides amongst women prisoners.

Paul Goggins: The number of self-inflicted deaths among women prisoners is a very serious concern for the Prison Service and for me. The suicide prevention strategy that I announced on 31 March 2004 applies across all types of prisons and to all prisoners, both male and female. A specifically targeted and separate suicide prevention strategy is being developed for women.

Meg Munn: I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. What steps are being taken to ensure that women are given community sentences wherever possible, not just because they relieve pressure on prisons and the overcrowding that we have been discussing, but because they relieve pressure on families, particularly where there are single mothers and children may be left without their carer?

Paul Goggins: My hon. Friend is right that when a mother goes to prison, her children are affected the most, and therefore a mother should be placed in prison only when the circumstances warrant it. The Government are developing a range of community alternatives to prison, and I am discussing improvements to court diversion schemes with ministerial colleagues in the Department of Health. We are ensuring that the bail information systems in our prisons are suitable, and I am currently reviewing hostel accommodation to make sure that women who can be accommodated in the community are accommodated in hostels rather than in prisons.

Drug Misuse Treatment (Offenders)

Ben Chapman: What steps she is taking to ensure that offenders receive adequate treatment for drug misuse.

Caroline Flint: Drug misusing offenders damage communities, their families and themselves. We are committed to breaking the cycle of offending and drug misuse. We are investing £447 million through the criminal justice interventions programme to get offenders out of crime and into treatment. That includes drug testing on charge for some offences, placing drugs workers in police custody suites, increasing treatment places in prisons and putting in place comprehensive through-care and after-care packages.

Ben Chapman: Although I agree that weaning offenders off drugs, including methadone, is important in tackling drug-related crime, does my hon. Friend agree that tackling alcohol abuse is equally important? Alcohol causes half of all violent crimes in this country and probably most incidences of antisocial behaviour in Wirral, South. The issue must be tackled, and I hope that the Home Office will take all possible steps to address alcoholism as well as drug addiction among offenders.

Caroline Flint: My hon. Friend makes an important point. This summer, we are targeting enforcement and tackling the underlying drinking problems associated with binge drinking in 70 basic command unit areas. We agree with the alcohol harm reduction strategy that drug action teams should become drug and alcohol action teams, and we are considering how we can support pilots to examine alcohol arrest referral, and are examining two pilot areas. In a recent speech at the Turning Point conference, the Home Secretary announced that we will examine the interventions for those for whom misusing alcohol becomes a criminal problem.

James Paice: The restriction on bail project is already under way in some of our cities, and the Government are ever so reluctantly inching towards the policy that we announced two years ago. What are the Government doing to increase the number of places for drug treatment outside prison? Does the Minister agree with the chief executive of DrugScope, Mr. Martin Barnes, who said that unless the initiative is matched by investment in places and in skilled drugs workers, there is
	"a risk that already stretched services will be inundated and unable cope."

Caroline Flint: I have crossed swords with the hon. Gentleman before, and it is a bit of a cheek to ask that question. The Government have put more money than ever before into both enforcement and drug treatment. The proof is that 140,900 people were in treatment in 2002–03, which is a 41 per cent. increase from the 100,000 baseline in 1998–99. The number of people starting treatment has increased by 47 per cent. in areas covered by criminal justice interventions programmes, and waiting times are falling across the piece. More needs to be done, but the Government are tackling the problem because we recognise that drug addiction fuels a huge amount of crime in this country. The issue involves growing capacity, which we intend to carry on doing.

James Paice: So the Minister does not agree with the chief executive of DrugScope and believes that the resources are sufficient. [Interruption.] Will she explain to the House why only 28 per cent. of drug treatment and testing orders were completed last year, and why recidivism occurred within two years in 80 per cent. of cases in the three pilot areas? That demonstrates that the system is still not right. The Minister may laud the extra resources, but they are inadequate. How many residential places—proper places—are needed to ensure that all young, hard drug abusers receive the same treatment as that provided in the best countries in the world, such as Sweden?

Caroline Flint: I am pleased to inform the hon. Gentleman that drug services have increased to approximately 750—up a third since 1997—and treatment for young people has increased by 69 per cent. In addition, we have pooled the young people's budget to ensure that money can be spent better and more wisely locally.
	I have never said that we are doing enough. More needs to be done. However, we have prioritised and ring-fenced the resources and I am pleased to say that, as of last week, residential rehabilitation is being used.

James Paice: As of last week?

Caroline Flint: As of last week, approximately 90 per cent. of beds in residential rehabilitation were being used. However, that is only one part of treating drug users and, as I have told the hon. Gentleman several times, one has to deal with people before they go into residential treatment and when they leave. The only way to achieve that is through a sustained policy, which means putting your money where your mouth is. The Government are doing that.

John Denham: I welcome the Government's substantial investment in drug treatment. Will my hon. Friend confirm my impression that, in the past year or so, we have probably made more impact on speeding up access to treatment for those who are newly arrested than on improving services for those who come out of prison? Given the importance of ensuring that those who clean up in prison do not go back on drugs, will my hon. Friend make sure that the investment is applied evenly across every part of the criminal justice system?

Caroline Flint: My right hon. Friend makes a good point. As Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, he knows the importance not only of identifying people through drug testing on charge—we are expanding the number of offences to which that will apply—but of getting people into treatment even before they go to court, whatever subsequently happens. Whether they go to prison or have a community-based sentence, they should be supported. That is why I am pleased to be working with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary responsible for correctional services to ensure through-care and after-care. That is an important aspect of making the policy work and making it sustainable.

Fixed Penalty Notices (Barnet)

Andrew Dismore: If he will make a statement on the use of fixed penalty notices for antisocial behaviour in Barnet.

Hazel Blears: Penalty notices provide the police with a quick and effective tool for dealing with low level, disorderly behaviour and divert those minor cases from the courts. In the past three weeks, police in Barnet have been conducting a successful operation, targeting antisocial behaviour that occurs on Friday nights. Around 40 penalty notices were issued in Barnet between April and June; 20,000 have been issued nationally.

Andrew Dismore: The Barnet police borough commander recently told me that he was highly sceptical about the effectiveness of the notices. However, he subsequently changed his view. He originally used rather unparliamentary language, describing them as something akin to a dog's reproductive anatomy. However, he has authorised me to say to the House that he now considers them to be an effective, precision-guided impact weapon in the fight against antisocial behaviour. He has issued 75 since May and believes that relentless follow-up of the fines is required. Will my hon. Friend consider whether some of the money could come back to Barnet to enable us to continue the campaign against antisocial behaviour?

Hazel Blears: I am delighted that the borough commander has changed his view on fixed penalty notices. Perhaps I would prefer him to refer to them as the cat's whiskers rather than his original description. I am pleased that fixed penalty notices have been welcomed throughout the country. It takes approximately half an hour to deal with a case with a fixed penalty, as opposed to two and a half hours to complete the paperwork for a charge. Each fixed penalty notice saves the criminal justice system approximately £100. Police universally welcome the notices as a quick, effective way in which to get the message across. We will use many more as part of our alcohol enforcement campaign.

Home Detention Curfew Scheme

Angela Watkinson: For what reasons the home detention curfew scheme is being extended to a maximum of 135 days.

Paul Goggins: The maximum curfew period available under the home detention curfew scheme was increased from 90 days to 135 days 12 months ago. That change provides earlier resettlement opportunities for lower risk offenders and helps to manage the prison population. At the same time, we also introduced a presumption against release for prisoners convicted of certain serious offences.

Angela Watkinson: To exactly what category of offences is the scheme to be extended? Will the Under-Secretary give the House an assurance that serious offenders, who serve seven-year sentences for street robbery, and drug offenders will not be included in the scheme? If they are to be included, has a proper risk assessment of public safety been conducted?

Paul Goggins: I am sure that I can reassure the hon. Lady. There is a presumption against people who have committed certain offences—violent offences, sexual offences, cruelty to children and so on—who cannot even be considered under this scheme. It is only available for prisoners serving sentences between three months and four years. Therefore anybody serving seven years would not be eligible. I confirmed earlier that we are not seeking to extend the scheme. Finally, of those who are eligible, only 39 per cent. are granted home detention curfew. Risk assessment is therefore taken very seriously.

Morecambe Bay Cocklers

Geraldine Smith: What action has been taken to deal with foreign nationals working illegally in the Morecambe Bay cockle beds.

Des Browne: The immigration service is working closely with both Cumbria and Lancashire police forces to tackle immigration offences arising from the presence of foreign national cockle pickers in the region. That work includes sharing intelligence, planning disruption strategy and responding to calls for assistance. The immigration service participates in Department for Work and Pensions-led multi-agency enforcement work, and is co-operating in the establishment of a joint enforcement group proposed by the north-west sea fisheries committee. I know that my hon. Friend is aware of 13 visits in the 50-day period between 24 March and 12 May to contact or identify illegal workers, disrupt illegal activity and gather intelligence.

Geraldine Smith: I thank the Minister for that response. I am sure that he is aware that there is widespread public concern about the large numbers of Chinese, suspected illegal, immigrants still working in dangerous conditions on Morecambe bay. Does he accept that there is still a public perception that the Government are turning a blind eye to this problem? That is probably because when Chinese people are picked up and identified as illegal immigrants, they are simply documented and released back into community, where they are once again vulnerable to exploitation. Can he tell me what his Department intends to do to remedy this unsatisfactory situation?

Des Browne: I know that my hon. Friend, who has been consistent and persistent in relation to this issue, as she has a particular constituency interest in it, is fully aware of the extent of the work being done not merely by the police but by the immigration service, the DWP and others in this regard. I rely on her to a degree, as she has the ear of her constituents, to provide assurance that the information that she has been given, often confidentially, proves to be correct in terms of activity in her area. She identifies a significant problem—returning illegal immigrants to China is difficult, as those immigrants tend not to co-operate with the Chinese Government's redocumentation procedures. That issue is at the forefront of our ongoing discussions with the Chinese Government on tackling immigration. We have recently signed a memorandum of understanding with China to take forward our co-operation on illegal immigration, which will provide a framework for progress on increasing removals. In the meantime, we stand ready to continue to assist any Chinese nationals who wish to return voluntarily.

Community Support Officers

Helen Jones: What recent assessment he has made of the contribution of community support officers to reducing crime and antisocial behaviour.

Fiona Mactaggart: At the end of June, there were 3,802 community support officers on patrol, and reports from forces that deploy community support officers indicate that they play a considerable role in reassuring the communities that they serve, that they provide a high-visibility presence, and that they have significant potential for impacting on low-level antisocial behaviour and disorder. A national evaluation is being planned, which will inform the future development of this role.

Helen Jones: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. From my discussions with CSOs in my constituency, and from the time that I have spent out on the streets with them, may I tell her that they make a considerable contribution, not only to providing reassurance for people but to working with other agencies in the area to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour? Will she tell the House when she thinks the assessment of their effectiveness will be completed? What chance is there of making sure that there are more CSOs out and about on our streets to contribute to making the public feel safer?

Fiona Mactaggart: The evaluation of the current achievements of the CSO force will be completed by the end of the year, but I hope my hon. Friend will find that the conclusions of the Home Office strategic plan accord with her ambitions for the improvement of CSO provision.

Anne McIntosh: In York and north Yorkshire we do not have too many community support officers, and not too many antisocial behaviour orders have been issued. How can we ensure that more are issued in the area, given that the Government have made them the main tool for controlling antisocial behaviour?

Fiona Mactaggart: The hon. Lady is right to recognise the importance of adequate numbers of officers to deal with antisocial behaviour issues effectively. That is why 11,000 more police officers have been provided throughout the country since this Government came to power. We find them in every community—in Yorkshire, in Leicestershire and in the west midlands. All over the country there are more police officers, and we have given them the set of tools that they require, including antisocial behaviour orders. It is up to local authorities to ensure that they use the ASBO powers we have given them to tackle this nuisance, rather than tolerate it.

James Plaskitt: We have 40 community support officers in Warwickshire—they are very welcome, and do an excellent job—as well as a record number of serving police officers. Nevertheless, many communities in my constituency would like a still greater police presence on the streets. CSOs are ideally placed to perform that role, and to develop strong relations with the community. Can my hon. Friend assure us that we will continue to expand the available supply of CSOs?

Fiona Mactaggart: For information about national supply, my hon. Friend will have to wait—as I hinted earlier—for the Home Office strategic plan. I hope that he finds it pleasant reading. He should, however, join us in welcoming the fact that not just Home Office expenditure is ensuring that we have CSOs throughout the country. Nearly 1,000 are funded entirely from other sources. Dealing with crime in our communities is such an important job that communities themselves are willing to raise the resources to provide CSOs who will tackle nuisance behaviour, and I welcome that where it has happened.

Stop and Search

Henry Bellingham: When he next expects to meet representatives of police forces to discuss policy on stop and search.

Hazel Blears: I have regular meetings with the Association of Chief Police Officers and other police representatives at which stop-and-search issues are discussed. We have recently launched a stop and search action team to ensure that the police use their powers of stop and search fairly, and as effectively as possible. The team will be working with both community representatives and police organisations, including ACPO, the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents Association. Its work is overseen by Baroness Scotland and me.

Henry Bellingham: Can the Minister confirm that future stop-and-search policy will be based entirely on operational policing requirements and priorities? Does she agree that at a time when the Government were stepping up measures against terrorist threats, it was wrong of her and other Ministers to criticise the police for recent stop-and-search statistics?

Hazel Blears: I gladly confirm that we consider stop and search to be an extremely useful power to the police when it is used in an intelligence-led and targeted fashion. That is why we are determined to ensure, along with the stop and search action team, that it is used in exactly that way.
	We have never blamed the police for the current circumstances. What I said was that I was concerned about the disproportionality in the way in which the powers were being used, and would seek to reduce it. I am absolutely determined that the powers will be used both to prevent and detect crime, and just as importantly, to prevent and disrupt terrorism. When they are used properly, they are an extremely important weapon in the armoury of the police.

Patrick Cormack: Does the Minister agree that there would be a public outcry if some terrorist had not been stopped and searched and had subsequently committed an act of terrorism?

Hazel Blears: The hon. Gentleman is correct, and I want to place it on the record that the powers under section 44 can be used only when they are authorised by a senior police officer, and then confirmed by me or the Home Secretary. We take that position extremely seriously.

Antisocial Behaviour

Clive Betts: If he will make a statement on his policies to combat antisocial behaviour.

Fiona Mactaggart: The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 introduced antisocial behaviour orders, and the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 provides a further range of tools to tackle antisocial behaviour. It reinforces the powers available to deal with antisocial behaviour, and along with the "Together" campaign it aims to make a lasting difference to the lives of people who experience antisocial behaviour day after day, and to change culture in communities where antisocial behaviour is tolerated rather than tackled. [Interruption.] We will continue to listen to feedback about the powers available, and we will consider legislating where necessary. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister is addressing the House; it is unfair that so much conversation is going on.

Clive Betts: I thank the Minister for her reply. Will she commend Sheffield city council's housing department and South Yorkshire police, who are working increasingly closely together in my constituency and using the whole range of measures against antisocial behaviour? Does she also agree with Sergeant Andy Wilson, the local community sergeant, who points out that although some young people are serious antisocial offenders, many simply cause nuisance and annoyance to elderly people by hanging around in large groups? Would it not be better to find extra resources to target youth facilities and other local facilities in our communities, and to ensure that the police are not wasting their time and resources by moving on groups of young people from one estate to another? For all the good work that the Government are doing in this respect—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can save that for an Adjournment debate.

Fiona Mactaggart: I am happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating the Sheffield trailblazer on its work in tackling antisocial behaviour. He is right to point out that the most effective work against antisocial behaviour operates in a two-pronged way. It provides positive activities for young people, in which this Government are investing at an unprecedented level, and the tools that the police and local authorities need to crack down on antisocial behaviour. That is why we have provided the new legislative powers that have been used in Sheffield.

David Trimble: I am sure that the Minister will agree that the initial legislation, introduced half a dozen years ago, was merely a first step, and that all the subsequent actions that the Government have taken through recent legislation and the Home Office's broad antisocial behaviour strategy have been very important additions to that first step. Will she therefore point out to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that it really is time he caught up with all that?

Fiona Mactaggart: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome for the work that we have done. The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety will of course continue to have conversations with her colleagues in Northern Ireland to ensure that best practice is spread throughout the country.

Louise Ellman: How does the Minister envisage that Liverpool's proposed community justice centre will be able to develop policies to deal with antisocial behaviour?

Fiona Mactaggart: The key to the proposed community justice centre is that it involves local people in delivering justice. Until now, the conviction and prosecution process has seemed very detached from the communities in which antisocial behaviour occurs. The community justice centre can bring that process back into the hands of the community, and make sure that justice is delivered by the people who are most affected by antisocial behaviour.

Neighbourhood Watch

John Baron: If he will make a statement on his relations with the National Neighbourhood Watch Association.

Hazel Blears: The Home Office has worked in partnership with the National Neighbourhood Watch Association for a number of years. In 2003, the Home Office provided a grant of £350,000 to help the NNWA out with its financial difficulties. It recently came to light, however, that it has without authorisation registered the Neighbourhood Watch name and logos as its own trademarks. Those are Crown copyright and public assets, and we are taking steps to recover them into public ownership.

John Baron: I thank the Minister for that response, but she will be aware of the Home Office's very recent decision not to provide interim funding support for the NNWA, while at the same time blocking its signing of a commercial sponsorship agreement. Given that recent Home Office statistics show that there were 66,000 incidents of antisocial behaviour in one day alone, does the Minister think this last-minute intervention by the Home Office acceptable—an intervention that the NNWA believes will result in its closure within weeks?

Hazel Blears: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong. It is not the case that the Home Office has scuppered the sponsorship deal. I want to place that on the record, along with the fact that the Home Office has supported neighbourhood watch every step of the way. We are determined that our local organisations will continue to involve local people in being the eyes and ears of the police, giving us that excellent community intelligence and doing the fantastic job that they do throughout the country.

Spending Review

Gordon Brown: In the Budget, I reported that, with inflation low, Britain is now enjoying the longest period of sustained economic growth on record. In this spending review, I can report that, with debt low, Britain can continue with historically high and rising investment in hospitals, schools and our public services, so combining the longest period of sustained economic growth for a generation with the longest sustained investment in public services for a generation.
	This investment has been made possible because since 1997 our monetary policy has met our inflation target, now 2 per cent., with stability achieved; our fiscal policy has reduced the national debt from 44 per cent. of national income to 34 per cent., making our national debt today lower than that of all our main competitors; our discipline has reduced debt interest payments, which consumed in 1997 3.6 per cent. of national income and now cost just 2 per cent., the lowest since 1915; and unemployment, which in 1997 cost 1 per cent. of national income, now costs a third of that, just 0.3 per cent, lower than that of our major European competitors.
	It is because unemployment and debt interest payments now consume just 2.3 per cent. of national income—half the 4.6 per cent. of national income of 1997—releasing £26 billion for investment, that we are today able to allocate substantial extra resources to front-line public services.
	A decade ago, three quarters of all new spending went to debt and social security costs, and just a quarter of new spending under the last Government could go to health, education, transport, defence, and law and order. In this spending round, three quarters of all new spending is going to these vital front-line public services.
	Let me tell the House the detailed figures. Holding strictly each year to the discipline of the total spending envelope, and fully affordable as we meet and will continue to meet all our fiscal rules, departmental spending, which is £279 billion this year, will rise to £301 billion next year, and then to £321 billion in 2006–07, and £340 billion in 2007–08. While overall spending in 2006–08 grows by 2.8 per cent. in real terms, low debt and low unemployment mean that departmental spending—spending on front-line services—will enjoy a real terms rise averaging over the three years of this spending review 4.2 per cent. a year.
	By insisting on further reform, we will be able to do even more to get more money to the front line and raise public investment substantially in our priority areas. To ensure that new resources yield the best results, we have already introduced independent audit and inspection; strict three-year budgets; the devolution of funding direct to the front line; and more flexibility and choice in delivery.
	Now, following the work that the Prime Minister and I instructed more than a year ago under Sir Peter Gershon—whom I thank—and after a rigorous review of procurement, back-office services and work practices, Departments are today publishing new plans to implement efficiency agreements with the Treasury. [Interruption.] Alongside Sir Peter Gershon, I want to put on record my appreciation of the work of our civil servants and their commitment to the ethos of public service. [Interruption.] It is precisely because the public sector has invested £6 billion in new technology—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I want the Chancellor to be heard.

Gordon Brown: It is because the public sector has invested £6 billion in new technology, modernising our ability to provide back-office and transactional services, that I can announce, with the detailed plans that Departments are publishing for the years to 2008, a gross reduction in civil service posts of 84,150, in order to release resources from administration to invest in the front line.
	With the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales and the Northern Ireland Office having also announced that they are engaged in efficiency and evaluation exercises as ambitious as those in England, with reductions also in back office and related areas; and with the 2.5 per cent. efficiency savings applied also to the settlement for local government in England, this allows for—in addition to the 84,150 posts—a reduction of a further 20,000.
	Following further detailed work, the merged Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise are announcing today that the gross reduction in their posts, which was provisionally set at 14,000, is now set at 16,000. And because of the scale of the overall reductions, I can tell the House that in each area of the country, public servants who are asked to change jobs will be offered support with retraining, and we are ready to work with the work force and their unions to provide that help.
	Today, I am publishing Department-by-Department plans to relocate further civil service jobs out of the south-east, including 5,000 staff posts relocated from the Treasury's departments, 4,000 to be relocated from the Department for Work and Pensions, 3,900 from the Ministry of Defence, and just under 1,000 each from the Department of Health, the Department for Education and Skills, and the Department of Trade and Industry. I can already announce the first sites for location, including 600 jobs from the Office for National Statistics moved to south Wales or Bristol, 250 posts from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs moved to Yorkshire, and just under 100 from the Department for International Development moved to East Kilbride. I know that for the remainder of posts being relocated, towns and cities across the country will want to make their case for being selected.
	I can also announce that for all Departments making future decisions, our policy will be a presumption in favour of location in the regions. And I can tell the House that after Departments make their announcements today, the numbers of posts relocated to the regions will add up to a total of 20,030 civil service jobs.
	I turn to further reforms in work practices. Eighty per cent. of sickness absences in the civil service are self certified, and they are not subject to formal medical certification. Because the current arrangements for sickness leave across the civil service and across the public services are open to abuse, I am today publishing plans to curtail uncertified absences. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will report by the autumn on the future management of public sector sickness absence and on measures to help those signed off for the long term back into attendance at work.
	I can now announce, therefore, that by 2008 there will be a real-terms fall in administration costs in the Department for Work and Pensions by 9 per cent., in the Department of Trade and Industry by 15 per cent., and in the administration of the Department of Health by 18 per cent.; that Sir Peter Gershon has laid down plans that will deliver £6 billion in procurement savings by 2008; and that total annual efficiency savings that now exceed 2.5 per cent. a year will boost effective front-line service delivery by a figure higher than the Gershon plan of, by 2008, £20 billion. The savings available for front-line services now amount to £21.5 billion a year. We have also accepted Sir Peter Gershon's recommendation that to go beyond that figure would put the delivery of front-line services at risk.
	As a result of this relocation and rationalisation, I can now make a further reform. I will also today set a new objective for the disposal of Government assets for the period from now to 2010. I have asked Sir Michael Lyons to work with each Department to rationalise its use of property and land and, where necessary, to arrange asset sales and disposals. I can tell the House that the objective that I am setting is an overall total of £30 billion of asset sales.
	Because the three major drivers of change—the three sources of new resources that I have highlighted: a cut in debt, a cut in unemployment, and now a cut in administrative posts—are releasing substantial resources for front-line services, we can now take the next steps in a decade of rising investment for Britain and fund our priorities, the country's priorities, which are: first, to meet the security and defence needs of our country; secondly, to equip our economy technologically and educationally to meet the global economic challenge; and thirdly, to renew our public services and the public realm for this generation. In each of these services, we have agreed, in return for new investment, further reforms to achieve better results and a better service to the public.
	Our first duty is the defence and protection of all citizens of our country.
	Since the tragic events of 11 September, the needs of national security at home and action against terrorism abroad have rightly assumed a new and heightened importance. Recent events demand that we strengthen not just our national security—our capacity to prevent terrorist incidents—but our national resilience, our capacity to respond. To bridge the security gap identified after 11 September, we have, with the Home Secretary leading, reviewed our security needs in depth and, for the first time, our spending review brings together all security costs and sets out the responsibilities our national security budgets must discharge.
	Before 11 September, overall spending on security at home was £950 million a year. Having now agreed a set of reforms that modernise our border security, and modernise also our counter-terrorism capabilities and our radio communication systems, improve our arrangements in respect of nuclear and chemical decontamination and add 1,000 staff to our intelligence services, overall security spending will rise from £950 million in 2001 and £1.5 billion this year to reach, by 2007–08, £2.1 billion—a 10 per cent. annual average real-terms rise in spending on security.
	In place of the old system of civil defence, we are establishing and funding a new framework of civil protection, and there will be a doubling of current provision for local authority emergency planning.
	In the last spending review the Ministry of Defence and our armed forces—upon which the defence of our country depends and to which we owe, particularly in this recent period, a debt of gratitude—were awarded the largest spending increase for 20 years. In this spending review I have matched that increase. Indeed in this spending review the increase is higher.
	To enable the Ministry of Defence to modernise for the long term, and to increase its efficiency and make the changes that are now necessary to continue to adapt strategically and technologically to the threats posed by international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons and the rapidly changing global environment, I propose to increase the defence modernisation fund so that in the period to 2008 it will be worth £1 billion.
	The Secretary of State for Defence will set out the detailed allocations of his full budget for our armed forces. It will rise from £29.7 billion this year to £33.4 billion by 2007–08—£3.7 billion a year higher than now, an annual average real-terms increase of 1.4 per cent. for defence. In addition, I will continue to meet the additional costs of military operations in full from the reserve, and to meet the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan, we have provided, to date, an additional £4.4 billion. To meet other pressures that may arise, aside from operations, in the future, we will provide the Ministry of Defence in 2007–08 with guaranteed access of up to £300 million. Taken together, these rises provide for a faster rate of real-terms growth in this spending round for defence than in the last and ensure the longest sustained real-terms increase in spending for two decades.
	Since 11 September, international diplomacy has also assumed greater importance. Because of that and the security risk faced by our Foreign Office and consular staff working in overseas embassies, the Foreign Secretary's budget will rise from £1.5 billion this year to £1.6 billion—a 1.4 per cent. annual average real-terms rise. I can also announce that, despite all our other pressures, we will not cut the budget of the British Council but will increase it from £173 million to £197 million. The budget for the World Service—whose 160 million-a-week audience is now its largest ever—will not be cut but will be increased from £225 million to £252 million by 2007–08.
	As the Prime Minister has said, 2005 is the year when the needs of Africa will be the focus of the UK's G7 presidency—a presidency for development. Our country's obligation is not to cut overseas aid, but to increase it. In 1997, Africa received just £450 million of UK bilateral aid. By 2007–08, Africa will receive £1,250   million to fund health, education and anti-poverty programmes—an increase of 300 per cent. To promote treatments and cures for HIV/AIDS across the developing world, we will allocate in each of the next three years £450 million, £500 million and £550   million—£1.5 billion in total—to tackle this scourge. So to meet all our international obligations, including the recommendations of the Africa Commission that the Prime Minister set up, the Secretary of State for International Development is announcing that he will increase his budget for aid from £3.8 billion this year to £5.3 billion by 2008, an average annual real terms increase of 9.2 per cent.
	Total UK aid, which fell in real terms by 23 per cent. in the 1980s and early 1990s, will by 2008 have risen since 1997 by 140 per cent. in real terms. For every £1 of UK aid spent in 1997, we will be spending £3 cash by 2008 and, along with debt relief, raising UK official development assistance from the 0.26 per cent. of national income that we inherited to 0.39 per cent. next year, 0.42 per cent. in 2006–07, and 0.47 per cent. in 2007–08. We wish to maintain those rates of growth in the overseas aid ratio, which on that timetable would rise beyond 0.5 per cent. after 2008 and reach 0.7 per cent. by 2013. I can also tell the House that if Britain's plan, the new finance facility, is agreed internationally, the objective of 0.7 per cent. could be achieved earlier, by 2008–09.
	Today, the humanitarian tragedy in Sudan is deeper even than at the time of Live Aid, which started in Sudan 20 years ago. The Secretary of State for International Development is today announcing that he is setting aside now, to be made available immediately a peace agreement is signed, emergency and other relief to address Sudan's crisis—a total over the next three years of at least £150 million more for Sudan.
	I thank the Churches, faith groups and non-governmental organisations for their representations. To date this year, for this spending round, the Treasury has received more than 15,000 representations that we should raise spending on aid and not cut it. I have received many other representations, of course, not just on international development, but on defence, national security and law and order, including from the shadow Chancellor, who has called for real-term Budget reductions in all these areas. But I have to tell the House that I have been more impressed by the representations of the shadow Defence Secretary, the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow International Development Secretary, one of whom said that such reductions would be damaging, and another that they would be "outrageous".
	Our determination to protect and defend the people of Britain is matched by our determination to equip Britain for the global economy. The future of the British economy depends on the future of British science. The 10-year framework for science that we are publishing today is designed to make Britain the best and most attractive location for science and innovation in the coming years. After rigorous selection of priorities within the industry budget, a reduction of Department of Trade and Industry headquarters posts and further reductions in its agencies, we are able to announce substantial new funding to support science teaching in our schools, improve salaries and stipends for graduate scientists and engineers, and support technology transfer and university-business link-ups, as well as pure research.
	Government funding for science will therefore rise from £3.9 billion this year to £5 billion by 2008—£1 billion extra for science, a 5.8 per cent. average annual real terms rise, and in cash terms a doubling of spending on science since 1997. As a result of the investment that we are making, the Wellcome Trust is today announcing a partnership with us to invest in UK research. They will match our commitment, investing over five years at least £1.5 billion more. With these two new investments—an extra £2.5 billion being invested in British science—and now the largest sustained increase in science spending for a generation, our objective for Britain is to raise overall spending on private and public research and development from 1.9 per cent. of national income, which has been among the lowest of our main competitors, to 2.5 per cent. of GDP by 2014, which will be among the best of our competitors, and the best guarantee of a successful economic future for this country.
	I can tell the House that, in preparing our spending review, I have consulted not only the scientific community but the Confederation of British Industry, business organisations, trade unions and regional organisations in every part of the United Kingdom, among whom there is remarkable agreement, a shared consensus and determination that it is in the national interest not to cut science, transport, housing or infrastructure investment but to press ahead with continuous and sustained long-term investment.
	To finance the detailed reforms in the rail industry and our road programme, the transport budget will rise faster than originally set out in the 10-year transport plan, from £10.4 billion this year to £12.8 billion by 2007–08—an average real terms increase in the transport budget of 4.5 per cent. a year. Total cash spend by the Department over the spending review period will be £2.9 billion more than we set out in the 10-year plan. By 2008, transport spending—even after inflation—will be 60 per cent. higher than in 1997. Full details of the rail reforms and the long-term transport strategy will be announced in statements by the Transport Secretary later this month.
	For decades, our country has seriously neglected investment in housing, both in building and in improvement. Forty years ago we built 400,000 houses a year; since the beginning of the 1990s, however, we have built only 200,000 a year. Following consultation over the Barker report and the announcement of 200,000 extra homes for the south-east, the Deputy Prime Minister will tomorrow announce the next stages in increasing the supply and affordability of housing. For England, the housing budget will rise from £5.9 billion this year to £7.2 billion by 2007–08, a 4.1 per cent. average annual real terms increase. That will mean that cash investment in housing has more than doubled since 1997. The Deputy Prime Minister will give details of a new £150 million fund to finance infrastructure around new housing developments. There will be new money to speed up the planning process, a 50 per cent. increase in social housing by 2008—urgently needed in our country—and a trebling of investment in renewal and renovation in low-demand areas in the north and the midlands.
	Investment not only in science, transport and housing but in enterprise, skills and economic development hold the key to modern manufacturing strength in our country and balanced economic growth in every region. To meet new and additional commitments to improve small business services, to meet adult skills needs, to support inward investment, to promote enterprise in disadvantaged areas—including supporting the Northern Way—and to devolve decision making further out of Whitehall, funding will rise from £1.8 billion this year to £2¼ billion a year by 2007–08, shared between our nine regional development agencies.
	To meet our environmental improvement targets for 2010—a 20 per cent. cut in carbon dioxide emissions, a target of 10 per cent. of electricity from renewable sources and a reduced reliance on landfill—the spending review will provide additional funding to sponsor low-carbon technologies to give more support through recycling landfill tax revenues for businesses that are energy efficient to minimise waste, and, with additional private finance initiative credits worth £155 million a year by 2008, to provide support for better waste management by local councils.
	To take forward the Haskins report on the rural economy, the budget of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will rise from £3.2 billion this year to £3.5 billion in 2007–08, an annual average real terms rise of 1.2 per cent. a year. To tackle one of the biggest problems of poverty—the problem that many elderly people face in heating and insulating their homes—we have extended the winter fuel allowance, introduced the pension credit and improved the energy efficiency of 600,000 homes over the last three years. A further £140 million will now be set aside to enable pensioners and other families to insulate and heat their homes. The Government's objective is to eliminate fuel poverty among the elderly by 2010, and to eliminate it in its entirety by 2016.
	I turn to public services and new public service agreements, which we are publishing today for the period to 2008. They set out the performance targets and reforms expected in our public services. Since 1998, we have offered every Government Department three-year budgets and three-year funding. Today, the Deputy Prime Minister will answer a persistent complaint of local authorities and for the first time they, too, will have three-year budgets allowing local authorities to plan ahead. Public service agreements will also offer high-performing local authorities greater freedom and greater flexibilities.
	In the last four years of the last Government, local authorities' grants were cut by 7 per cent. In the most recent four years of this Government, they have been raised by 23 per cent. and later the Deputy Prime Minister will set out the full details of the real-terms rise in the annual grant to local authorities—an average rise of 2.7 per cent a year, substantially above the average settlements received by local authorities in the last three decades.
	I can also announce the settlements for the devolved Administrations and Northern Ireland. The last spending round awarded the Welsh Assembly an additional £492 million to ensure funding of objective 1 and European social fund allocations to ensure the economic regeneration of Wales. I can now announce that, over and above the Barnett additions, Wales will receive even more for the coming three years—an additional £550 million. The Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Executive will publish full details of the allocations later. Overall, by 2007–08 there will be an extra £2.5 billion for Wales, raising the Welsh budget from £11.1 billion to £13.6 billion. With objective 1 funding, that amounts to an annual average real-terms rise of 4 per cent. For Scotland, there will be a total of £4.2 billion, raising the Scottish budget from £21.3 billion to £25.5 billion—an annual average real-terms rise of 3.5 per cent. With additional funding for the European Union peace programme, Northern Ireland will receive an additional £1.2 billion a year—an annual average real-terms rise of 3 per cent.
	In the Budget in 2001, we made a decision to open national museums free to the public. Since then, museums that have abolished charges have seen their attendances rise by 70 per cent. from 7.7 million to 13.3 million a year. Today, after discussions led by the Chief Secretary and Culture Secretary, I can announce an extension of free access to university museums, too. With increased funding for arts organisations, local creative arts partnerships and the revitalisation of regional museums—and with increased funds nationally and regionally for sports and sports facilities—the budget of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport will rise from £1.4 billion this year to more than £1.6 billion by 2007–08—a real-terms average annual rise of 2.3 per cent. Looking ahead, and to ensure far better co-ordination of national sports effort and resources, Pat Carter will report on the proposal to involve private and public sectors together in a new national sports foundation.
	I am also announcing funding for social services, especially to improve community care for the elderly. The social services budget will increase by just under £2 billion—from £10.6 billion this year to £12.5 billion by 2007–08. That is a real-terms average annual rise of 2.7 per cent. a year. As a result of the spending review, the Secretary of State responsible for social services is also extending, in every area of the country, the provision of care alarm systems for the elderly so that elderly and disabled people can stay in their own homes and yet have access to the support that they need. An additional 160,000 of the very elderly will be able to install these care alarm systems. In total, we expect 1.5 million pensioners to benefit by 2008.
	I can confirm that, as announced in the Budget, funds for the national health service will increase from £69 billion this year to £92 billion by 2007–08—an annual average real-terms rise of 7.1 per cent. allocated to health that will go to and be spent through the NHS and by the NHS on patients treated free at the point of need—not spent to subsidise private medicine.
	For decades, this country neglected investment not only in hospitals, social services and schools, but in our criminal justice system, in policing, in tackling antisocial behaviour and in improving the quality of life in our neighbourhoods. So the final obligation of this spending review is to make the investments necessary to create in our country stronger and safer communities.
	Since 1997, there has been a 25 per cent. reduction in crime, a 40 per cent. reduction in domestic burglary and, for persistent young offenders, we have cut the average time from arrest to sentence from 142 to 66 days by contrast with a cut in police numbers of 1,100 under the last Conservative Home Secretary, there has been, under this Government, a rise of 11,000 policemen and women. Today, this Government will not take the advice of the Opposition to cut the budget for law and order; we will increase it substantially to tackle crime, to prevent crime and to reduce the fear of crime.
	First, there will be new resources to tackle crime to fund the Home Secretary's decisions—to create a new National Offenders Management Service, bringing together prison and probation; to create a reformed charging and sentencing system; and to create a new serious organised crime agency. For those treated, drugs rehabilitation has also succeeded in cutting reoffending by 50 per cent. Together, the Home Secretary and the Health Secretary will also increase the numbers benefiting from drug rehabilitation from just 100,000 six years ago to 200,000 a year by 2008.
	Just as our society must make it clear that no crime is acceptable and no criminal act excused, so, too, our society must acknowledge that in past decades we have not done enough to tackle the sources of crime, particularly among young people. We are agreed that we must now provide new resources and that all Departments must play their part in an alliance with voluntary and local organisations to prevent crime.
	The Deputy Prime Minister will announce details tomorrow of a new fund to finance community-based measures that, on the one hand, tackle antisocial behaviour and, on the other, build and develop the facilities and public spaces that are the bedrock of successful local communities. It is right to expect responsibility from young people, and every community knows that the answer to young people hanging around street corners is to provide other places for them to go. Later this year, starting from three-year allocations in this spending round, the Education Secretary will publish a Green Paper on the reform of services for young people in this country, and next week the Home Secretary will announce plans, financed by the spending review, to extend the support provided to troubled teenagers at risk of reoffending.
	The neighbourhood renewal fund, under the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, is designed to improve the safety and quality of previously run-down neighbourhoods, to tackle the causes of crime and to address deep-seated inequalities in our country. Results now show that following the agreed four-year programme of sustained investment, neighbourhood renewal areas are seeing faster improvements in job creation and in educational attainment, and there are greater reductions in property crime than in other parts of the country. So the Deputy Prime Minister will not abolish the neighbourhood renewal fund; he will extend it with a budget each year of £525 million until 2008.
	With the Home Secretary in the lead, our increased support for the work of community, charitable and voluntary organisations will, in this spending round, also be focused on building stronger, more stable communities and on engaging, most of all, the young as we consider new mentoring, gap year and volunteering initiatives for teenagers and others. A £30 million pound a year fund is being established by the Home Secretary to support the victims of crime, not least those who suffer the crime of domestic violence.
	There is one further investment that the Home Secretary believes is essential for stronger and safer communities. There is a clear consensus among the people of this country that to modernise the way in which we tackle crime and the fear of crime we need, on our streets, not just policemen and women but community support officers at the heart of each neighbourhood who can also patrol our streets, build links with local people and prevent antisocial behaviour.
	Just as reform in education means that we are strengthening the effectiveness of teachers by matching them with classroom assistants, and reform in the NHS means that we are strengthening the effectiveness of doctors by matching them with nurse practitioners—in a country that is proud of our public servants, investing in our public services—so, too, the Home Secretary proposes that reform in the criminal justice system means strengthening the effectiveness of police by matching the record number of police achieved by this Home Secretary, which is now 138,000 in total, with a new group of community-based officers.
	Scotland and Northern Ireland will make their own announcements. Today, the Home Secretary is announcing that he will fund community support officers and neighbourhood wardens—numbers that will rise year on year to 2008. To pay for those and his other responsibilities, the budget of the Home Secretary will rise from £12.7 billion to £14.9 billion by 2007–08—an increase of nearly £2.2 billion, and an average real-terms rise of 2.7 per cent. With the immigration and nationality directorate budget now flat in real terms, the rest of the Home Office budget will see an annual real-terms increase of 4 per cent. Next week, the Home Secretary will announce the detail, with money now available to finance a record level of 138,000 police officers, which is matched by finance available to increase neighbourhood policing—providing for a total of 20,000 community support officers by 2008, as we tackle crime and the fear of crime in our country.
	The Budget set out the education settlement. I can confirm the rise in UK spending on education from £63 billion to £77 billion by 2007–08, which has led to the five-year strategy announced last Thursday by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education and Skills.
	So, over the whole 10-year period to 2008, and in addition to policing, overall spending on education will have risen in real terms by an average of 5.2 per cent. a year, on transport by 5 per cent. a year and on health by 6.5 per cent. a year. That is a decade of rising investment which, taken together, is giving us in Britain more teaching staff in our classrooms than ever before, more doctors and nurses in our hospitals than ever before, and more police and support officers in our communities than ever before. Because of low unemployment, low debt and lower administrative costs, we have been able at the same time to fund the best defence settlements for 20 years, and in this spending review to fund a 4 per cent. average real-terms rise in housing, a 5.8 per cent. rise in science and a 10 per cent. rise in security spending. We have a Britain that can succeed because of stability, hard choices and rising investment.
	There is one additional reform that has the potential to transform opportunity for every child and to be a force for renewal in every community, and on which the Government wish to make progress today. While the 19th century was distinguished by the introduction of primary education for all, and the 20th century by the introduction of secondary education for all, so the early part of the 21st century should be distinguished by the introduction of pre-school provision for the under-fives and child care available to all.
	Today I can announce that, having already provided nursery education for three and four-year-olds six months ahead of our plans, we will pilot as an experiment in 500 areas of the country the extension of nursery education to two-year-olds. Because it is our basic belief that every child should have the opportunities available only to some, we will extend the Book Start scheme, and at nine months, 18 months and then at two years old we will provide free books for every child. For 2 million children a year, that will be their first introduction to learning: an investment not just in every child but in the long-term future of our country. I can also inform the House that this spending review will set aside funds so that by 2008 we will have created at least 120,000 more child care places.
	The challenge that we are setting today goes beyond this spending round, so we will publish in the pre-Budget report a plan for the years from now to 2015, to make a reality of our vision of choice for parents and high quality provision for all under-fives. As a first step, I can today say that, in order to bring forward the building of new children's centres in our country, I can now allocate from the capital modernisation fund an extra £100 million. From the 260 today, and the 1,700 proposed in the Budget, we can move the number of children's centres we build and open between now and 2008 up to 2,500, as we advance further and faster towards our goal of a children's centre in every community and in every constituency of this country.
	All those investments are possible because I have rejected the proposals of those who would cut spending on important services: more investment, not less, now and into the next Parliament. We are rebuilding our communities; there is such a thing as society. Our prudence is for a purpose, and I commend this statement to the House.

Oliver Letwin: What we have just heard is a manifesto for fat Government and fake savings. The last time the Chancellor told us that he was going to make tens of thousands of cuts in the civil service was three months ago. Why has he been adding to civil service numbers since then? What the review really means is more bureaucracy, more targets, more initiatives, more taskforces, more centralisation, more regulation, more borrowing and more taxes.
	The Chancellor told us about waste—£21.5 billion of waste—yet the entire spending review is about spending more money. Why is the Chancellor the only person in Britain who thinks that the way to waste less is to spend more? [Interruption.] People up and down the country will be asking themselves this question: who was it that wasted all that money? Who was in charge when 52,000 civil servants were added to Whitehall? [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is enough of that noise. I will not tolerate it, and someone might well be expelled from the Chamber for making it.

Oliver Letwin: Who was in charge when the number of senior managers in the national health service increased three times faster than the number of nurses? Who was in charge when the Home Office built a new building—for £311 million—that is not even big enough to accommodate all the extra civil servants that have been hired? Who is the mystery man who was in charge of all that waste? The Prime Minister knows the answer: it is the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
	The Chancellor told us today that he has wasted £21.5 billion—and not a word of apology. Now, he sets himself up as the great wastefinder-general. Does anyone think that he will succeed? Not the Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services, who said:
	"we've paid a lot of taxes, but what has really been achieved with all that money?"
	Not the Minister for Local and Regional Government: when he said that it would be a miracle if the Government found the savings, the right hon. Gentleman was not only honourable, but right.
	Why do the latest figures on public sector employment show that of 88,000 extra jobs in education in the last recorded year, only 14,000 were for teachers and teaching assistants? Now, that is a miracle. The Chancellor first announced massive reductions in the number of Department for Work and Pensions staff two years ago. Why has the number of DWP staff increased by 3,500 since then? That, too, is a miracle. The Chancellor said two years ago that his new smart procurement initiative would save £750 million on defence procurement, so why did the defence procurement budget overrun by £3 billion last year? That is not just smart—that is definitely a miracle.
	When will the Chancellor acknowledge that while Ministers have been preaching about obesity, their Departments have been getting fat on taxpayers' money? When will he accept that if government is really going to cut out the flab what is needed is a complete change of lifestyle? The fact is that fat Government is not fit enough to deliver.
	Why, after £305 million a year of spending on the new deal for young people, are there still 1 million young people not in work, not in training and not in education? Why, after an increase of £30 billion in NHS spending, are there still 1 million patients on NHS waiting lists? Why, after the Chancellor has doubled spending on the Home Office, are there still 1 million violent crimes a year? Why, after all that spending, can he not even match our commitment to 40,000 extra police officers?
	The only thing that the Chancellor's fat Government have delivered is fat taxes. He is planning to spend £1 million a minute of taxpayers' money by 2007. As the Governor of the Bank of England has pointed out, the Chancellor cannot go on borrowing to pay for that big spending. When will the right hon. Gentleman admit that he is spending beyond his means and that his policies mean third term tax rises under Labour?
	I confidently predict that in a moment or two when the Chancellor stands to respond, he will—with huge bravura—proclaim that his vast expenditures of other people's money contrast with so-called Conservative cuts—[Interruption.] Yes, Labour Members are already cheering at the thought, so may I tell them about those Tory cuts? We will cut bureaucracy. We will cut inefficiency. We will cut the quangos. We will cut the regulations. We will cut the armies of interferers who do nothing good for the people of this country. We will cut borrowing. We will cut waiting lists. We will cut failure in schools. We will cut crime. We will cut this big, fat Labour Government down to size.

Gordon Brown: The shadow Chancellor does not seem to realise that administrative spending is falling substantially as a result of our proposals. He also does not realise that as a result of his statement, while we are spending more on defence—£33 billion—he will be telling the shadow Defence spokesman that he can only spend £30 billion—a £2.6 billion cut. While we are spending £14.8 billion on law and order—I have the figures and the right hon. Gentleman has announced them—the Conservatives would spend £1.6 billion less. While we are spending £12.8 billion on transport, they would spend £1.8 billion less—£11 billion. While we are spending £5.3 billion on international development, they would spend £4.5 billion. The shadow Chancellor cannot escape the consequences of his statement. He announced that outside health and education there will be real reductions in spending in all other Departments.
	The glummest faces in the Chamber are those of the shadow Defence Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary, because they know exactly what will happen. I will tell the shadow Chancellor what waste is about. Waste was 3 million unemployed. Waste was the poll tax. Waste was two recessions under the Conservative Government—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not like to interrupt, but Members are getting very excited.

Gordon Brown: It was the shadow Defence Secretary who said that the cuts proposed by the shadow Chancellor were unacceptable. Other shadow Cabinet Ministers know that the Tory party of Robert Peel is now about cutting the police. The Tory party of Winston Churchill is proposing to cut defence. The Conservative party will sooner or later have to face the fact that its policies make it weak on defence, weak on law and order and weak on infrastructure investment. As far as health and education are concerned, we know what its policy is—it is to transfer money out of the health service into the private sector and out of the school education sector into the private education sector.
	The shadow Chancellor had better go back to his drawing board and think again. Unless he can tell us that his cuts will not be imposed on those Departments, the public will draw the conclusion that we all draw, and Conservatives will have to explain in every constituency how many community support officers, how many police, how many wardens, how many home helps, how many carers, how many NHS nurses and how many teachers will be sacked. That is the problem that the Tories now have.

Vincent Cable: May I start by saying that there are elements in the statement with which I agree? I welcome the sustained commitment to more resources for education, health, law and order and foreign aid, in marked contrast to the Conservatives. I also welcome the fact that the Government have taken up our proposal to put the Treasury at the head of Government Departments to be relocated to the provinces. It is a timid programme but the Chancellor has put the Treasury at the head of it, at last.
	Fundamentally, the statement is about reducing the rate of growth of public spending. Hence we have the mock battle between the Conservatives' slash and burn versus the Chancellor's somewhat more cautious trim-and-singe approach to public spending. However, conceptually they are the same. They are both arguing that we can have lots of good things—more public services or tax cuts, or both. It is all going to be funded by the magic ingredient that is called cutting waste.
	I am happy to subscribe to an agenda for cutting waste, if it can be genuine and if it can be found. It strains credibility when the Government argue that they can suddenly produce a rate of growth of productivity in the public sector of about 2.5 per cent. a year. Even the Treasury does not believe in it. It put out a statement last week on this new productivity target, saying
	"because it has not been possible to measure efficiency for the whole of the Treasury in these terms"
	the Treasury will not be adopting it.
	If the Treasury does not believe in the Government's productivity target, why should anybody else?A more fundamental question is: if this waste is so easily available, why has it not been dealt with already? Had it been, we would have decent pensions and there would be no university tuition fees.
	Our approach is different. We believe that, in order to fund priority areas, clear choices have to be made. That is why we argue that, in order to have decent state pensions without means-testing, a lot of money has to be found. We argue that we should take industrial subsidies and other subsidies and cut them, making a clear political choice. If more money has to be found for the police force, some of the Home Secretary's extravagancies, such as the £3 billion identity card scheme, must be cut. If more money has to be found for early years and primary schools, the Treasury's extravagance, the baby bond, must be cut.
	One of the things that was very striking about the Chancellor's statement was that it contained no reference whatever to the Prime Minister's enthusiasm for choice in public services. The phrase was not even mentioned. [Hon. Members: "It was."] If the Chancellor did mention it, can he be a little bit clearer? What choice in public services means is building in spare capacity. How much spare capacity is he building into the next spending plan to allow for choice, and how much will that cost?
	The core of the Chancellor's proposal was the loss of public sector jobs. Anybody who has worked in the private sector or has had anything to do with it will be amazed that he has entered into a competition with those on the Conservative Front Bench for headcount reductions. Employing Ministers and senior civil servants costs 10 times as much as hiring tea ladies, but when there is a headcount reduction, it is the low-paid staff who get sacked. Will he spell out clearly how many Ministers and senior civil servants there are among the 84,000 redundancies?
	Can the Chancellor explain how the 40,000 cuts in the Department for Work and Pensions will operate? If there is not going to be a reduction in complexity and means-testing, is it not inevitable that our pensioner and other constituents will find the service even more inefficient than they do already?
	In conclusion, the search for waste, desirable though it may be, is evading the key issue—choosing the areas of government from which the Government can withdraw and then deducing the manpower implications, rather than starting with an arbitrarily chosen headline cut in numbers and then working out what the implications for services will be.

Gordon Brown: When the Liberal spokesman said that he was going to be tough and make the hard choices, but concluded that he was not going to go ahead with the 84,000 job reductions that we were proposing, it showed exactly what the Liberals are like—always looking in two directions at the same time. As for his hard choices, I have looked at all the press releases he has allowed to be issued over the past week. They mention state-of-the-art schools and more for care homes, child care, local authorities, buses and rail and small businesses. There is no discipline at all in the Liberal party when it comes to spending commitments.
	As for the hon. Gentleman's point about industrial subsidies, we have already announced in the Budget, as he knows, that we are eliminating permanent ongoing industrial subsidies in the old industries that exist around the country, but is he really saying that there should be no launch aid at all? Is he really saying that we should do nothing to support the innovative developments in the modern industries of this country, when every other country does so? Does he not know that on the issue of identity cards, the Home Secretary is arranging that that be by charge? Is he really going to fight the election telling every parent that he is against the baby bonds that we are introducing, which I believe do something not only about inequalities in income in our country, but about the vast inequalities in wealth that also exist? It seems to me that those in the Liberal party should go back to their constituencies and decide whether they have a policy at all.

John McFall: May I join the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, the shadow Secretary of State for Health, the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Secretary of State for International Development in welcoming the extra spending announced by the Chancellor today? In particular, I welcome the 0.7 per cent. target for international development by 2013, which will be warmly welcomed around the world. Will the Chancellor indicate his plans for Africa during the UK's presidency of the G8 in 2005?

Gordon Brown: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is Chairman of the Treasury Committee. He is a powerful advocate of reforms in how the economy is managed and of international development. We will pursue our Africa agenda, and the Commission for Africa has been set up. At the same time, we take the view that more resources will be needed in Africa for health care and for economic development, particularly if we get results in the trade round. I assure my right hon. Friend that we will continue to push faster and further, so that the international community adopts our proposals on an international finance facility.
	It is right to point to the shadow Secretary of State for International Development, who said:
	"If we are to be taken seriously as a party of government which cares about the most vulnerable people on the planet, then there has to be a public spending commitment."
	That is the shadow Secretary of State for International Development telling the shadow Chancellor that he does not agree with his policies.

Kenneth Clarke: The Chancellor will win all the prizes going for sheer brass neck, but not those for consistent policy making. Will he acknowledge that he has just announced a sharp reduction in the growth of public spending, but tried to make it sound as though he is dispensing largesse in all directions? He tried to make the announcement sound like a pre-election spending spree, but he is dealing with the consequences of the last pre-election spending spree, which started in 2000. Does he accept that the warnings that he was given that he could not increase public spending at the rate that he has in the past six years without reducing productivity and value for money in the public sector were right, however much the statistics are changed?
	Does the Chancellor now accept the advice that it is complete folly to believe that rapid job reductions and efficiency savings—however worthy they may be—will achieve such savings without policy changes? He announced no policy changes at all in the domestic sphere, except for the introduction of nursery education—and no doubt a national curriculum—for two-year-olds. Given that the slow-down in the growth in public spending still sounds as though it is above the likely trend growth for the economy, does he accept that he has not corrected all the errors of his tax and spend years? He would almost certainly have to raise taxes again if a Labour Government were returned to office.

Gordon Brown: I am surprised that a former Education Secretary is so against improving learning opportunities for two-year-olds and laughs at such a serious proposal. Everyone knows that the first few months of a child's life are crucial to their later educational development. With the help of Sure Start and other programmes, we can do more as a community. I would have thought that he would support those measures, rather than encouraging his Conservative supporters, who do not want public spending, to ridicule them.
	On the right hon. and learned Gentleman's general point about public spending, he knows that when we came to power in 1997, we had to deal with a situation in which inflation was rising. We had to bring interest rates and inflation under control, and we froze public spending for two years at the same time. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that we could not implement the freeze, but we did it. Because of the need for investment in our country and the neglect of infrastructure over the decades, we have invested more in education, health, transport and policing, and I would have thought that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would support that.
	On the right hon. and learned Gentleman's idea that we have made mistakes in macro-economic policy, the general view is that, uniquely, Britain has survived a world recession without going into recession itself. He should praise us on the conduct of economic management by the Bank of England and on our fiscal policy, rather than criticising. As for his advice for the future, he advised us that we were wrong to make the Bank of England independent, so I have been careful about taking his advice ever since.

John McDonnell: I declare an interest as the chair of the parliamentary group of the Public and Commercial Services Union. Will the Chancellor receive a delegation from that group to discuss the consequences of the 100,000 jobs that will go from the civil service? The vast majority of our civil servants provide us with an excellent service and have supported the Government well. Many will face compulsory redundancies. That will have an effect not only on their lives and future careers but on service delivery. I would welcome an opportunity for members to meet my right hon. Friend to go through the implications of today's announcement in some detail.

Gordon Brown: My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary met my hon. Friend and his delegation only days ago. Obviously, meetings will take place and I am happy to meet civil service union leaders to discuss those matters. However, my hon. Friend must put them in their proper perspective. We have invested £6 billion in new technology so that we can modernise the services that are available. With changed back-office services and the introduction of technological change, it is right to consider whether we need the same number of people to administer them and the transactional services in the next few years.
	Investment in new technology and decisions that, although difficult, are necessary for the future mean that we can finance the development of front-line services. That means that, by 2008, there will be 80,000 more nurses, 20,000 more doctors, 90,000 more classroom assistants and more than 20,000 more teachers. I should have thought that most people, including my hon. Friend, supported that as the right way of moving to build up front-line services in the future.

Edward Leigh: I am asking this question on behalf of the Liaison Committee, whose Chairman cannot be here, as well as myself. Does the Chancellor believe that, if Parliament is to carry out its traditional role of scrutiny of public spending, Select Committees should be as well informed as possible? Will he therefore publish the letter that the Chief Secretary sends all spending Departments every July, which outlines their public service agreements and spending plans? It is currently kept under wraps, even inside Departments. Does the Chancellor agree that, if he published the letter, he would not simply pay lip service to openness but do a great deal for accountability of spending before Parliament?

Gordon Brown: Obviously, I shall examine anything that the Liaison Committee or the Treasury Committee submits to me. I shall answer questions at a meeting of the Treasury Committee on Thursday. The hon. Gentleman is unfair if he suggests that there has been a lack of transparency in the Government's operation of economic policy since 1997. We opened up economic policy in a way that had not previously happened both in the operation of the Bank of England and our fiscal policy. All our assumptions on fiscal policy have to be audited.
	Under the previous Government, one could pluck out any figure from the air on, for example, privatisation revenues, unemployment, or indirect effects of savings, and make figures look as one wanted them to appear for a specific spending round. Under this Government, we have audited assumptions, which must be published. The National Audit Office reports on them and Parliament can question us on them. On Thursday, Treasury questions and a meeting of the Treasury Committee will take place. There is therefore a great opportunity for people to question us on the public spending figures. On Wednesday, we shall hold a debate on today's public spending pronouncements.

Tom Clarke: I welcome my right hon. Friend's comments about international development and I recognise that he is the first Chancellor in history to commit himself to a date on which the United Nations target will be achieved. Will he use his undoubted moral authority to appeal to British business and commerce to respond to a policy of fair trade so that the objectives that he wants to achieve are seen to be widely shared?

Gordon Brown: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has taken a great interest in those matters over the years and been active in work in Africa and other parts of the world in promoting development. We are one of half a dozen countries that have recently said that they are setting a date for achieving the objective of 0.7 per cent. That is part of a wave of opinion that, in 2005, will insist that the developed world does more for the developing world. That is why we have set up the Africa Commission, proposed the international finance facility, and increased aid so substantially in the last few years and as a result of our decisions today.
	As far as business is concerned, I will meet many international businesses in the next few days to try to persuade them that they should also be involved in the development process, particularly in relation to our Africa Commission. As my right hon. Friend has suggested, I will tell them that they too must play a part in unlocking the trade talks that are now stalled. It is necessary that large companies take a far bigger interest in the development of the continents that we are talking about. I see a greater interest than there was a few years ago, and it is now time for us in Britain to bring together business, exactly as the United Nations has done in the business round table.

Peter Lilley: The Chancellor promised a gross reduction of 80,000 posts in the civil service over coming years. Can he tell us what the net reduction, or increase, will be over that period, and how many posts will simply be outsourced? Of the 88,000 extra posts that he created in education last year, how many does he now propose to abolish?

Gordon Brown: First, the figures that I announced were 84,000—

Peter Lilley: Gross.

Gordon Brown: The figures were 84,000 for the UK Administration and 20,000 for the devolved Administrations. I announced in the Budget—[Hon. Members: "Net."] Hon. Gentlemen do not want an answer; they want to provoke the House into not having a proper debate on these issues. I am going through the figures for the benefit of the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), who was, after all, the shadow Chancellor some years ago.
	We announced in the Budget that as far as the Department for Work and Pensions was concerned, there would be a gross reduction of 40,000 and a net reduction of 30,000. I believe that the figures are 84,000 and 69,000 or 70,000, and on top of that, 20,000 from the devolved administrations and local government. Of course, we are relocating 20,000 jobs in total. That is why the administrative costs of the Government will fall to 3.7 per cent. I should have thought that the Conservative party—which has brought forward not one proposal about how to make those changes, despite all the talk of a so-called commission to examine the issue—would have welcomed the fact that we have done the serious and rigorous work that no previous Government have done, to make sure that we have the right civil service numbers for the future.

Tam Dalyell: The paragraph at the top of page 6 refers to the additional £4.4 billion in relation to Afghanistan and Iraq. What exactly are the figures for the costs, which none of us would grudge? What we ask, however, is whether extremely expensive projects that looked important 10 years ago, such as the Eurofighter, should not have their expenditure at least contained, when the military objectives of such projects are now open to question.

Gordon Brown: One of the recommendations of the Gershon report is to improve procurement, and of course, one of the major areas for savings is in the Ministry of Defence, which is one of the biggest procurers in the country. Sir Peter Gershon has recommended that £6 billion of savings could be achieved by a better system of procurement. As for my hon. Friend's other questions about Afghanistan and Iraq, I shall write to him on the different costs relating to those countries. As far as the Ministry of Defence and costs are concerned, I shall write to him about the savings that will be achieved in relation to procurement in that Department.

Patrick Cormack: Can the Chancellor confirm that he said that he hoped to raise £30 billion from the sale of assets? Can he tell the House what sort of assets he has in mind?

Gordon Brown: I think that I also said to the House that land and property sales would form the major part. A further piece of work is to be done by Sir Michael Lyons, who did the relocation inquiry for us, in which he will work with Departments to identify land and buildings that are no longer necessary, partly as a result of the changes that we are making in the structure of the civil service and the public services, and partly to examine whether they are being efficiently used. He will work with Departments to arrange whatever dispositions of those assets, both land and property, are required.

Martin O'Neill: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the expenditure on science, and particularly on the moves that he is making to facilitate technology transfer. Can he guarantee that any fiscal obstructions that might have appeared can be dealt with as soon as possible to enable those companies to be established? Can he also tell us what he proposes to do to let traditional manufacturing take more advantage of emergent technologies and incorporate those in its investment plans? I am not suggesting simply another handout, but I think there is a case for more imaginative thinking so that our manufacturing base can be enhanced to take advantage of emerging technologies.

Gordon Brown: My hon. Friend has worked hard with universities and business to build up the country's technological base. In answer to his recommendations about fiscal policy, let me assure him that we will look at the problems experienced by spin-off companies from universities, to which he was undoubtedly referring. As I have said, that is something for the pre-Budget report. We shall also consider the tax treatment of assets, and what is happening in such companies. I shall report to the House on that in due course.
	As for science generally and its effect on manufacturing industry, the £1 billion of extra money that we are investing in science as a result of the review will be of great help to the industry. It is also benefiting from the research and development tax credit—indeed, it is the principal beneficiary—and from the permanent self-assessment allowances that we have created and built on over the last few years. It is benefiting, too, from the closer financial links that we are encouraging between universities and companies.
	We hope that in all those areas, our new science and innovation investment will do more. Our future as an industrialised country in a restructured global economy depends on value-added companies—companies that are technology-driven, making precision and niche products. With high technology invested in them, those are the companies that will create both wealth and jobs in the future. It is our duty as a Government to support the pure and applied science that can make their development possible.

Angus Robertson: On behalf of the Scottish National party, I welcome the announcement of the 0.7 per cent. aid target. It is only a shame that it has taken us so long to emulate the small, independent European neighbours that have already undertaken that obligation.
	Today's statement contained the biggest announcement of job losses since Margaret Thatcher closed down the coal industry. The Chancellor spoke repeatedly about front-line services. I hope that he had in mind our service personnel, who are of course in the firing line in the Prime Minister's war in Iraq. Can he assure us that none of Scotland's historic regiments will be amalgamated or disbanded?

Gordon Brown: We have just produced a defence settlement involving a larger real-terms rise than earlier rounds, which will give our defence forces the resources necessary for investment in the future. That includes Army personnel, both in Scotland and the rest of the country and elsewhere.
	I must say that for the Scottish National party to tell us that its policies for the break-up of Britain and the complete separation of Scotland could ever defend the British armed forces is quite ludicrous.

Chris McCafferty: May I join others in welcoming the increase in the aid budget for developing countries, particularly for the purposes of health, education and anti-poverty strategies? May I also join others in congratulating the Chancellor on grasping the nettle and adopting a 0.7 per cent target for the very first time? Does he agree, however, that the best anti-poverty strategies are holistic? Should they not include good policies on reproductive health and maternal care, both before and after childbirth, and programmes to combat HIV/AIDS? Will he ensure that such programmes play an important part in the increasing aid budget?

Gordon Brown: I thank my hon. Friend for her comments, and her support for the statement of our objectives for international aid policy. She may have heard me announce that as part of the international aid budget, £1.5 billion will be provided over the next three years specifically for treatments and cures for HIV/AIDS. That will rise from £450 million to £500 million, and then to £550 million, over those three years. As for maternal services and dealing with the problems of infant mortality, our contributions to both the global health fund and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation fund for immunisation have increased in recent years. As part of the international aid budget, we will spend considerably more on health generally, both in Africa and elsewhere. What my hon. Friend suggests will be very much part of that budget.

Patrick McLoughlin: In 2002, the Chancellor announced that he was going to reduce the number of staff in the Department for Work and Pensions by 18,000. Why has the number increased by 3,500 since that reduction programme started?

Gordon Brown: The hon. Gentleman cannot have been following the news in the past few days. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced the locations of the DWP closures, the job losses in particular areas and the first stage of the gross reduction of 40,000 in civil service posts. The hon. Gentleman must look again at the facts. It is we who are taking the action necessary to cut back on bureaucracy, and we who rightly introduced the pension credit, which the Conservatives oppose. Of course we want the pension credit to be administered properly; the trouble is that the Conservatives do not want it at all.

Peter Pike: My right hon. Friend will know how important the housing renewal pathfinder project is in Burnley and east Lancashire. What is the exact nature of the Government's commitment to that very important project over the next three years?

Gordon Brown: Tomorrow, there will be a statement by the Deputy Prime Minister on the issues affecting his Department, which include housing. My hon. Friend will be able then to get more details on what is a threefold increase in the money available for improvements to low-demand housing areas in his constituency—to which I believe he is referring—and elsewhere in the north and the midlands. We understand the representations that he and others have made, and that the housing stock needs renovation. That requires resources, and a special amount of money must be set aside, which is exactly what the Deputy Prime Minister has done. The question of the impact on individual areas is a matter for my hon. Friend and the Deputy Prime Minister to discuss—hopefully, when we debate these matters tomorrow.

Ian Taylor: The Chancellor surely cannot be too surprised by the degree of scepticism about his plans, given that he is pre-committing expenditure before he has made the savings that he announced in order to justify such expenditure. Such savings will not come easily. As we know, many of the 84,000 people in question will be under contract, so redundancies will be necessary.
	On a specific point, can the Chancellor assure the House that the budget for the research assessment exercise, which relates to the Department for Education and Skills, will increase in proportion to the welcome proposed increase in the science and technology budget? If the research assessment exercise budget is not increased in matching form, the universities will have a real problem.

Gordon Brown: On the hon. Gentleman's second point, the science budget covers all Departments, not just one. I hope that his question about the science budget—which relates to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and is a matter for the Secretary of State—will be answered. However, the science review was a cross-departmental review and does not relate to just one Department.
	The Conservatives seem to be taking a very strange position on the question of job reductions in the civil service. We have announced that these jobs will have to go, and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has announced closures in particular areas. People now know where the first tranche of job losses will occur and how they will be affected, yet the Conservatives' position seems to be that nothing is happening. This is a painful process and we regret the fact that people have to lose their jobs, but we are helping them to get new ones. It really does nobody any good for the Conservatives to suggest that the big change that is taking place, and which has to take place, is not happening at all.

Gordon Prentice: I listened carefully to what the Chancellor said to my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike), and I want him to know that east Lancashire has the worst housing in the country. There are 4,000 empty properties in Burnley and 2,000 plus in my constituency. I welcome the trebling of resources for the nine pathfinder areas, but can he reassure me that the money on offer will make a material difference and turn things round?

Gordon Brown: This could be a very expensive afternoon indeed if I were to agree to the representations made by my hon. Friends the Members for Burnley (Mr. Pike) and for Pendle (Mr. Prentice). The overall sum was announced today, and the precise allocation to different areas is a matter for the Deputy Prime Minister and his budget. Indeed, my hon. Friends should make their representations to the Deputy Prime Minister and to the relevant local authorities. However, such representations now have the effect that they want. Money has been set aside, and we will help them to deal with this important issue, which must be dealt with soon. I agree that empty properties and those in a dilapidated state must be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

Teddy Taylor: While it would be wrong for any true Conservative not to applaud the Chancellor for his target of reducing the civil service by 84,000 jobs, which is more ambitious than anything proposed by Lady Thatcher's Government, is he confident that it can be done, bearing it in mind that, according to the figures that I have, the number of civil servants has been increasing by more than 500 every week over the past two years?
	On relocation, will the Chancellor promise to bear in mind the fact that seaside towns such as Southend-on-Sea have far more unemployment and deprivation than other areas in the south-east?

Gordon Brown: I take it that the hon. Gentleman is making a representation for civil service jobs to come to his area, but the issue that he rightly raises is that a reduction of 84,000 jobs is a very serious matter. It is wrong of Conservative Members to suggest that it is nothing, or merely something flimsy—it is a serious issue, which deserves to be treated more seriously than they have done this afternoon. The fact is that 84,000 jobs are going; 20,000 jobs are being relocated; 20,000 additional job reductions will come as a result of what is happening in local authorities and in the devolved areas; £22.5 billion of efficiency savings will result; and then we will proceed to £30 billion of asset sales.
	We have already started the process of reducing jobs, and it will happen, but I certainly understand the difficulties of areas, such as the hon. Gentleman's constituency, that have higher unemployment rates than others, perhaps in some cases seasonally, and that is why the new deal is being brought into play to help with the transition, including help for public servants moving to new jobs as a result of the changes. Our desire is not to leave people isolated as they face change but to help them through it and to equip them for the jobs that certainly are available, as witness the 600,000 vacancies in the economy today.

Linda Perham: I warmly welcome the increase in the transport budget to £12.8 billion, but does the Chancellor acknowledge the importance of the Crossrail project to equipping Britain for the global economy and to the regeneration of east London? Will Government funding for the project feature in the comprehensive spending review?

Gordon Brown: There is a rise of 4.5 per cent. in real terms over three years in the transport budget. The Secretary of State for Transport will make announcements about the future allocation for that project in the next few days, and I hope that my hon. Friend will wait for those announcements and question him on them then.

Bob Russell: Do the calculations for defence expenditure involve the closure or amalgamation of any regiments, battalions or other units of the British Army? Will there be more soldiers, fewer, or the same number? The Chancellor must know the answer. Why will he not tell us?

Gordon Brown: The precise decisions about the configuration of our forces are a matter not for the Treasury but for the Ministry of Defence and the Chief of Defence Staff, working with the Defence Secretary. What I can say, however, and what Opposition parties cannot deny, is that we have made available the money for the next few years, until 2008, to ensure the proper equipping of our forces. The Liberal party is now urging that we spend more on defence in addition to all—[Interruption.] Now the Scottish nationalists are shouting, so I remind the House that their proposals for the future of UK defence would mean that there was no UK defence at all.

Jeremy Corbyn: Can the Chancellor give us some estimate of the redundancy costs of the 84,000 job losses in the civil service? What consultations will be held with the civil service trade unions? What proportion of the work will be outsourced to private sector organisations? What impact assessment has been made of the likelihood of local unemployment in particular areas where there are large numbers of civil service jobs?

Gordon Brown: It is precisely for those reasons that change is taking place. I said in my statement that we are ensuring that the new deal and the Employment Service will be involved in helping people as they try to move between the jobs that they have at the moment and the jobs that exist in the economy.
	As for consultation on these issues, that has already begun. I have had meetings, and other meetings will take place. Some have been taking place today. I assure my hon. Friend that the proper consultation process will be gone through. In the interests of our defending public services in the longer run, he must face up to the fact that if we are investing substantial sums in new technology and do not need the same numbers of people to provide back-office or transactional services, it would not be the right policy for us to maintain them in jobs that no longer need to exist. It is right to release these resources so that we can have more nurses, doctors and front-line people in the health service, and more people in our schools, community services, and law and order services. That is the right way forward.
	My hon. Friend talks about the effects of redundancies. I have to tell him that as a result of the new deal and the Employment Service, thousands of people find new jobs every day. There are 600,000 vacancies in the economy. I hope that the House will give the Government credit for the 2 million new jobs in the economy since 1997.

Michael Fallon: Does the Chancellor accept that any business man will tell him that efficiency savings are always easier to announce than to secure? If his are not realised in full, what guarantee does the taxpayer have that taxes will not have to rise to fund the difference?

Gordon Brown: As everybody knows, the decision in the last Budget was whether to cut taxes or to invest in public services. I believe that I made the right decision for the country in saying that we wanted to invest more in education, in health, in transport, and in law and order and policing. The decisions on investment that have been announced today resulted from that decision in the Budget.
	As for efficiency savings, we have already started the process of making reductions. Announcements have already been made, and more will follow. The Opposition seem to be taking the view that we will not go ahead with these reforms and reductions, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are already doing so. It is not a very good Opposition campaign to tell people who are losing their jobs that they will not lose them.

Anne Campbell: May I, too, warmly welcome the increase in science spending and tell the Chancellor that that will be extremely popular in my constituency? In the lead-up to his statement today, did he receive any representations on abolishing the Department of Trade and Industry, and if so, could he say why he rejected them?

Gordon Brown: There have been representations from the Liberal party; the same people wanted to move the Treasury to Liverpool.

Richard Bacon: Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer agree with GP magazine that the national programme for IT in the health service is
	"more likely to be a fiasco than the Dome";
	and should not he be rather worried that the Department of Health is about to squander £6 billion?

Gordon Brown: The hon. Gentleman should be cautious about what he says about these things. A great deal of work has been done in setting up that very extensive IT programme. As I understand it, the national health service uses more IT than any organisation outside NASA—the space centre—in the United States of America. It is therefore very important that it is got right. New people have been brought in and the whole system has to be modernised. It is important that electronic records can be properly developed and that nurses and GPs' surgeries can be in regular contact with hospitals. It is in all our interests that the programme works. Before the hon. Gentleman pronounces that it is not working, he should look at the evidence of all the efforts that have been made to ensure that it does. It is certainly very important to the future of our health service—we would agree on that.

Harry Barnes: In connection with the welcome increase in expenditure on social housing, how much of it would be directed towards council housing being democratically controlled by its local authority?

Gordon Brown: That is a matter for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The Deputy Prime Minister will make further announcements on how he sees housing developing in future. It will also depend, of course, on the decisions that are made by local people about what they wish to do in terms of housing associations and the control of local housing. I can say, however, that we have recognised the great need for social housing, for which my hon. Friend has always campaigned, in all parts of the country. There is a need for affordable housing and for new build. Achieving the level of house building and house improvement that is essential will necessitate combined efforts on reforming the planning system, releasing more land, encouraging reform in the house building industry, encouraging the rented sector to move forward, and financing the housing associations and housing authorities to which my hon. Friend refers.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I want to try to call the remaining hon. Members who want to ask a question. There is big pressure on the business of the House today, so I appeal for very short questions, as well as very short answers. I call Angela Watkinson.

Angela Watkinson: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will the Chancellor tell the House how much he has added to the national debt in each of the years since 1997, and how much will he add this year?

Gordon Brown: The national debt was 44 per cent. of national income when we came to office; it is 34 per cent. now. That is a substantial reduction in the proportion of debt to income.

Owen Paterson: For the third time of asking, can the Chancellor say, in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) and the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), how many of the posts whose number he intends to reduce will be outsourced to agencies offering services such as IT, and so will effectively remain a burden on the public purse?

Gordon Brown: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's proposition that the reductions that we are bringing about are somehow transfers from the public sector to the private sector. That is not the case. We are not proposing to outsource those jobs to the private sector. We have decided, as a result of our review, that the back-office services provided need fewer people to administer them. That is why we are making the reforms, which involve a gross reduction in staff of 84,000. His question is based on a misunderstanding: we are reducing the number of staff, not using the proposals to outsource staff.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has painted a rosy picture of the economy this afternoon. Can he explain what he is doing about last month's almost record balance of payments deficit of £3.6 billion—or, for that matter, why the savings ratio has halved under his Administration?

Gordon Brown: If the hon. Gentleman looks at the American trade deficit, he will see it is a great deal higher than ours, and I suppose that he would say that the American economy is moving forward with one of the highest growth rates in the industrialised world. I remind the House that he has said:
	"I give the Chancellor credit for achieving his predicted growth rate this year".—[Official Report, 23 March 2004; Vol. 419, c. 775.]
	He really should use his own questions, and not those given to him by Conservative Front Benchers.

Point of Order

Humfrey Malins: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether I may seek your guidance in relation to this afternoon's proceedings. The Joint Committee on Human Rights published its report on the new clauses of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill a week ago. It condemned the Government for introducing what my noble Friend Baroness Anelay called a "torrent" of new clauses at such a late stage, saying that the practice undermined proper democratic scrutiny of the human rights implications.
	Even Lord Rooker, a Minister, said that the Government's treatment of the Committee in the other place
	"could be bordering on contempt",
	and he stressed the need for this House to have
	"plenty of time to talk about the recommitted issues".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 July 2004; Vol. 663, c. 723.]
	The Bill is almost twice the length it was. With possible Divisions, we have perhaps only three and a half hours to discuss major new clauses. Given the way we have been treated, I ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether there is any way in which we can today debate at greater length both the programme motion and the clauses before us. Conservative Members are terribly upset that the House is being treated with such disdain by the Government.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The House has heard what the hon. Gentleman says, but he must know that that is not a matter on which the Chair can rule. Matters such as those relating to the motion before the House are determined under Sessional Orders, and the Chair has no scope to alter its terms.

Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill (Programme) (No.3)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 6 November 2003],
	That the Programme Orders of 17th December 2003 and 1st   March 2004 relating to the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill be supplemented as follows—
	Consideration of Lords Amendments
	1.   Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall be taken at this day's sitting in the order shown in the following table and shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the time specified.
	
		TABLE
		
			  
			 Proceedings Time for conclusion of proceedings 
			 Amendments Nos 28, 29, 42 to 62 1 hour 15 minutes after the commencement of proceedings 
			 Amendments Nos 15, 30, 31, 17, 18, 14, 16 3 hours 30 minutes after the commencement of proceedings 
			 Amendments Nos 21 to 27, 19, 20, 32, 40, 41, 33, 34, 1 to 13, 35 to 39, 63 to 69 10.00 p.m. 
		
	
	Subsequent stages
	2.   Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any question being put.
	3.   The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement—[Margaret Moran.]
	The House divided: Ayes 244, Noes 125.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Orders of the Day
	 — 
	Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill

[Relevant documents: The Third Report, HC 252, Fifth Report, HC 304, Thirteenth Report, HC 640, and Fourteenth Report, HC 828, of Session 2003–04 from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on the Committee's continuing scrutiny of Bills.]
	Lords amendments considered.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I inform the House that privilege is involved in Lords amendments Nos. 18, 27 and 28. If the House agrees to the amendments, I shall arrange for the necessary entries to be made in the Journal.
	Lords amendment: No. 28.

David Lammy: I beg to move Government amendment (a) to the Lords amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment (h), Government amendment (b), amendment (i), and Government amendments (c) to (g) thereto; Lords amendments Nos. 29 and 42 and Government motion to disagree; Lords amendment No. 43 and Government motion to disagree; Lords amendment No. 44 and Government motion to disagree; Lords amendments Nos. 45 and 46, Government motion to disagree and Government amendment (a) in lieu thereof; Lords amendments Nos. 47 to 60; Lords amendment No. 61, Government motion to disagree and Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu thereof; Lords amendment No. 62 and Government amendments (a) and (b) thereto.

David Lammy: Let me summarise the effect of the Government motions that we are proposing. We are proposing that the House agree to most of the Lords amendments to clause 14, schedule 1 and schedule 2. Lords amendment No. 28 brings in the bulk of the new policy, and to that we are proposing further amendments to the High Court review process. We aim to change the time limits back to five days; to allow other written submissions in limited circumstances; and to give effect to an agreement with the Opposition in the other place that the variable fees element of the new legal aid system should be removed.
	Although we are technically disagreeing with Lords amendments Nos. 42 to 44 and 61, as I shall outline later, the new amendments have the same effect of retaining lay members in the new tribunal. We are also disagreeing with Lords amendment No. 46 and moving an amendment to restore the discretion of the president of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal to direct how many members should hear each case. Finally, Government amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 62 also restores the five-day time limit in the new filter process.

David Heath: Just so that we are absolutely clear about what the Minister is saying, will he confirm that he is talking about five calendar days, not five working days, as he is amending the phrase "10 working days"?

David Lammy: I am indeed talking about five working days. The issuing of the decision is taken as being from two days after the case has left the court, allowing for post and other things. So it is five days from that period. I am sure that we can discuss such matters later.
	Hon. Members will recall that when the Bill left the House, we were proposing to oust the jurisdiction of the higher courts. As my noble and learned Friend, the Lord Chancellor, said on Second Reading in another place, we have listened carefully to the arguments made by Members of both Houses and the senior judiciary. We have also had regard to the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The amendments, in particular amendment No. 28, reflect our considered response to those arguments and take forward a number of constructive proposals. I am pleased that we have been able to move forward with consensus among stakeholders in the legal profession and the judiciary and the majority of both Houses on this important legislation.
	Let me remind hon. Members of the delays and abuse that we are seeking to remedy. It is important that the system for asylum and immigration appeals is fair, but it must also provide finality and be speedy. A swift, final decision is in the interests both of genuine refugees and of the British taxpayer, as was said on Second Reading. The British taxpayer should not be expected to bear the cost of supporting those with unmeritorious cases as they play the multiple tiers of appeal over and over again. It is important to emphasise that fewer than one in 10 challenges to an adjudicator decision results in a different outcome, which shows that the system can and must be improved. Our intention in introducing the single tier is to target delay and reduce abuse in the system. I am confident that our proposals will achieve that by reducing what can be a 62-week process to under 20 weeks.
	Let me explain how the new system will work. I will refer to the High Court and Court of Appeal but, of course, for cases in Northern Ireland and Scotland, the appeals will be determined by High Court or Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland and the Court of Session in Scotland.
	Amendment No. 28 replaces subsections (6) and (7) in clause 14 with the new system of judicial oversight of tribunal decisions set out in proposed new sections 103A to 103E that will be inserted into the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Under the new system, a party to the appeal will be able to make a review application to the High Court on the grounds that the tribunal may have made an error of law. During a transitional period, these applications will be considered in the first instance by a senior member of the tribunal. Our intention is that applications must be made within five days unless the appellant is abroad. There is provision to vary the time limits by order.
	If the High Court is of the opinion that there may have been an error of law, it will send the case back to be reconsidered. In cases in which the High Court thinks that the case raises a question of law of general importance, it can refer the case to the Court of Appeal. If a case has been considered by a three-member panel, there is a direct right of appeal to the Court of Appeal with permission, and if an appeal has been reconsidered by the tribunal, there is also a right of appeal to the Court of Appeal with permission. We have also introduced an enabling power to make regulations for a new legal aid scheme for both the High Court review process and for reconsideration of cases by the tribunal. I shall set out that process in more detail when I speak to Government amendments (f) and (g) to Lords amendment No. 28.
	Lords amendment No. 45 clarifies the role of the senior judiciary in the new tribunal, and Lords amendments Nos. 47 and Nos. 50 to 60 are consequential.
	Amendments (a) and (b) to Lords amendment No. 28 and amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 62 restore the Government's original intention that five-day time limits should apply to the High Court review process under section 103A. Time limits of one working week for making a review application to the High Court are central to achieving our aims of speed and finality. We are confident that five days are sufficient for an appellant to consult their legal representative, for the representative to prepare the application and for the application to be lodged.

Dominic Grieve: Is there not a problem? The Minister and, indeed, the whole House want a system under which unmeritorious appeals are not brought; we all share that view. Therefore, it is important that lawyers who are advising their clients should have a proper opportunity to consider matters, especially in light of the fact that we are properly to introduce sanctions, including the loss of legal aid, for an unmeritorious appeal. Does that not in itself mean that five days is a very short period? The Minister will see that I have tabled an amendment suggesting an alternative of seven days, which would go some way to providing extra flexibility. Surely 48 hours' difference will not grind the system to a halt.

David Lammy: I hope to make some progress, but the hon. Gentleman will understand that we must go back to basics to ensure that we have the right amount of time. We are dealing with an error of law. The applicant has made his case to the IND, and gone on to do so to the tribunal. If we look at the current working arrangements on statutory review, we see that lawyers are taking about five or six hours to make such a determination, with some additional hours—say two or three—taken up if they have asked counsel to draft advice. That is effectively one and a half working days, but we are allowing them five working days, give or take the two days for issuing a decision. A working week is a suitable and appropriate amount of time in which to make an application.

David Heath: I am sorry to labour the point, but I want to be absolutely sure. The Minister keeps on referring to five working days, yet that is not what would appear in the Bill if his amendments were accepted. The Bill would simply say five days, which must be five calendar days. If we are to interpret five days as five working days, we must interpret the reference to 28 days in the following subsection as 28 working days. Will the Minister clarify his intention, because he is mixing two terms?

David Lammy: I really think that there is not much between us; I think that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the rules of court. I ask him to check his facts against section 103A(4)(a) and the rules of court, under which courts allow special provisions.

Dominic Grieve: The point raised by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) is perfectly valid. There appears to be an ambiguity in the Bill. It would be useful if the Minister confirmed through his officials during this debate my understanding that five days is not described as five working days, because under the rules of court, a period of under a week automatically excludes weekends.

David Lammy: Absolutely. Perhaps because of my own period in practice I accept that five working days means, in effect, the Monday to Friday that most lawyers work.

Lynne Jones: Will my hon. Friend explain the status of bank holidays in this context?

David Lammy: Bank holidays will be taken into consideration under the rules in the same way as weekends.
	Normally the legal representative will already be familiar with the case and the tribunal will have provided reasons for its decision. We expect the process to involve about six hours for a legal representative and up to five hours for counsel, if counsel is used in the case.

Mark Oaten: The Minister just said that normally the legal adviser would be familiar with the case. On what evidence does he base that assertion? I should have thought that quite a number of individuals will want to change their legal adviser, especially if they are about to mount an appeal, so new advisers will have to get to grips with their case.

David Lammy: The overwhelming number of clients stay with their legal adviser. We are discussing cases involving an error of law. A new legal adviser should be able to establish that error of law on appeal within five days. If—it is a big if—that were not the case, a new legal adviser would be able to go to the court and ask the judge to exercise his discretion to extend the period. Provision is made for that in new section 103A(4)(b), which gives the court the power to vary the period.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: The Minister seems to be saying that, whether it is five days or 10, the period is arbitrary. It is certainly extremely short compared with the time normally allowed for appeal procedures—the shortest period that I know of is 14 days. What is the assessed benefit to the system, the Government or anyone else of five days rather than 10?

David Lammy: As I said, only one in 10 applications succeed and there are far more appeals in this part of the tribunal system than in any other; it is therefore important that we consider the time scale. Hon. Members have been telling Ministers for some time that they are worried about the quality of some—not all—of the legal representatives in the asylum field. What we do not want is an extended period that allows individuals time to shop around for various opinions and then make an unmeritorious application. We had this debate on Second Reading. The figures show that five working days—a working week—and giving the judge discretion to vary the period will be sufficient, especially when one considers that, on average, it takes about six hours to prepare an application on an error of law. I stress that in the exceptional cases in which one working week does not provide sufficient time, both the tribunal and the High Court will have discretion to extend the period and to allow a late application to proceed. That clearly provides an important safeguard for applicants for review. I urge the House to recognise the balance that we seek to strike and to support the amendments.
	Government amendments (c) and (d) to Lords amendment No. 28 introduce an additional flexibility to the procedure for review. Rules of court will be able to permit the court to consider additional written submissions.
	I move on to Government amendments (f) and (g) to Lords amendment No. 28. As I explained, section 103D provides an enabling power for new legal aid arrangements. Under the new scheme the intention is that regulations will provide for the tribunal to order legal aid to be paid after the reconsideration of an appeal if the case is successful and decided in favour of the appellant, or the case is a near miss. In exceptional circumstances the High Court will have the power to order legal aid to be paid for the review process. At this stage the court is considering only whether or not there may have been an error of law which the tribunal or the Court of Appeal should consider.
	Government amendment (f) recognises concerns raised about the proposal for the fee to vary depending on the result of the reconsideration or referral. Our amendment meets those concerns by removing the ability for payments to vary.
	Government amendment (g) is in response to the helpful discussions about the importance of funding cases that have merit. The amendment links the power to order funding more closely to the prospects of success of the application. We have always intended cases with significant merit to fall within the scope of the scheme and this amendment ensures that they will. Through these new arrangements, we are asking lawyers to share the risk with the taxpayer when deciding whether a case should be pursued beyond the single tier. We recognise that there are many good immigration lawyers, but we also know that unfortunately there are some in this area of the law who have continued to bring unmeritorious cases. The new arrangements will encourage good practice throughout the profession, and sit with all the other things that we have done: accreditation, the establishment of the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, bringing cases earlier to the Legal Services Commission to determine and ensuring that we have quality and value for money across the field in terms of legal provision for asylum and immigration.

Dominic Grieve: I confess that I had some difficulty following the Minister's argument a moment ago and I may have misunderstood the position. He will be aware that in the other place there was a debate on 6 July at columns 741 and 742 relating to the extent to which there should be a conditional fee system. It was made quite clear in the other place that the official Opposition and, indeed, others, would not accept a conditional fee system. Lord Filkin indicated that he accepted that, as long as there was a tough merits test. My understanding is that although the Government have removed the conditional fee system for reconsideration, they have not removed it for review. That may be an accident that is curable, but I would like an assurance that that is what is going to happen.

David Lammy: The hon. Gentleman knows that there have been discussions as recently as a few minutes before I rose to move these amendments, and it is the Government's intention, following those discussions between Lord Filkin and Lord Kingsland, to move further amendments, as was indicated in another place.

Annabelle Ewing: The Minister referred a moment ago to a scenario where there would be a near miss; that is a new concept to me as a lawyer. What definition is set out of what a near miss means?

David Lammy: As I indicated, we are taking an enabling power in this legislation. There are a number of scenarios where it would be right for the lawyer to receive payment where he had not been successful on behalf of the applicant, but we can define that, as the hon. Gentleman indicated, as a near miss or a case that has merit. For example, if an application was made under the law as it stood at one time, but the House of Lords or the Court of Appeal made a decision in the intervening period that changed that legal basis, it would probably be right for the lawyer to receive funds. Furthermore, even if an applicant has been unsuccessful in making their claim, their case may have established important case law that defines a particular group or community and will have a lot of bearing on immigration and asylum cases. In such circumstances, it would also be right for the lawyer to receive funds.
	Those are the circumstances that have been discussed. We are keen to continue to discuss how we should define in regulations the scope of a meritorious case. On that basis, we wanted to include cases in which the lawyer was right to bring the case, but was not successful in acting on the applicant's behalf.

Mark Oaten: If a lawyer thought that there was a 50:50 chance that a case would be won, would it be appropriate for them to proceed?

David Lammy: I have already said that these circumstances are a matter for regulations. There will be instances in which the lawyer has not won, but the case was of some merit. That issue has been discussed in the other place, which is why we have tabled the amendments. Let us leave the technical discussions, as I think is right, to the legal profession and the Department for Constitutional Affairs in going forward to regulations. We will discuss the matter when we come back on the affirmative procedure.

Dominic Grieve: I apologise for returning to this point. I would not have done so if the Minister had not spoken at the Dispatch Box about the lawyer sharing the burden of responsibility, which suggested that the Government still had a conditional fee agreement in mind. My understanding is that it was made absolutely clear in the other place that the Government would not get a conditional fee agreement through the other place, but that Lord Filkin indicated—I shall quote him later—that he appreciated that that was the case and said that the matter could be reconciled by a tough merits test. I assume that that is what we are dealing with, and that the lacunae that seem to exist in terms of the drafting of Government amendment (g) will be cured along the lines of the assurance that the Minister has given. I am sorry to ask again, but in view of the words that he used—I realise that forms of words can be used in a slightly odd fashion and that people can mean different things—I would be grateful for reassurance on that point.

David Lammy: I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that reassurance.
	Through the new arrangements, we are asking lawyers to understand that the Government take the matter seriously and that it is right that we seek to limit the sort of unmeritorious cases that have been brought in the past. That is why I ask hon. Members to agree to our amendments.
	I turn now to Lords amendments Nos. 42, 43, 44 and 46 to schedule 1 and Lords amendment No. 61 to schedule 2. Together, those amendments would retain lay members in the new tribunal and require the majority of appeals to be determined by a panel. The Government are proposing three amendments in lieu, which accept that there is a role for lay members in the new tribunal and tidy up the drafting. Government amendment (e) to Lords amendment No. 28 is consequential upon the reintroduction of lay members.
	We disagree with Lords amendment No. 46, however, and Government amendment (a) in lieu does not require the majority of appeals to be heard by panels. Instead, it allows the president to make arrangements having regard to the complexity of the case and other circumstances. We must ensure the appropriate level of scrutiny, and giving the president discretion, having regard to the complexity of the case and other circumstances, will create a flexible and efficient approach to case management. Our amendments will ensure that panels hear the right cases, which will benefit from the input of lay members. I urge hon. Members to support the Government amendments in lieu.
	Lords amendments Nos. 48 and 49 relate to appeals before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. Lords amendment No. 48 provides for a more streamlined procedure for appeals against deprivation of citizenship, which reflects our intention to run deprivation and deportation appeals concurrently, and it also protects the interests of the individual if a deprivation order is overturned. Lords amendment No. 49 would confer a parallel jurisdiction on the Special Immigration Appeals Commission covering appeals to that body against deprivation of citizenship under section 2B of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997.
	On that basis, the Government are pleased to return with the amendments, which have been discussed for some months.

Lynne Jones: I have been listening to the debate, which I find extremely confusing, and gather that further discussions will occur in the other place. I note that the Government have yet to respond to the report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which has expressed reservations. Can the Minister provide an assurance that the Government will respond to that report before the matter is dispensed with?

David Lammy: The Home Office Minister with responsibility for asylum and immigration has responded to the report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Because we have listened to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Constitutional Affairs Committee, hon. Members of this House and Members of another place, we have reached a broad consensus on this important legislation, and we heard in this afternoon's debate that procedural points about time limits are all that remain between us.

Dominic Grieve: I start by saying to the Minister, in the same spirit as that in which he concluded his remarks, that, if the sinner repents, it is wise for those who see the repentance at least to acknowledge it. The Bill left this House in the most dreadful condition—as far as the rule of law in this country is concerned, it was not far off being an obscenity—and despite our attempts to persuade the Government on Report, the Government appeared obdurate.
	That said, an overwhelming majority of Members of the other place, including many who take the Government Whip, have persuaded the Government to see sense. Once again, we have had to rely on them to save this country from a form of tyranny, so hon. Members, and perhaps even Ministers, should be grateful. As the Minister says, we are left, as a result of their hard work, with a number of areas of detail. I acknowledge that and hope that we can satisfactorily resolve them. The question whether that can be done depends on whether the Government will now show a little flexibility.
	I shall start with the main bone of contention, which might appear to be small, but precisely because it is so small, I find it puzzling. On Report, I tabled an amendment that provided seven days in which to appeal to allow a statutory review procedure rather than the ouster of the judicial scrutiny of the asylum process. When the matter went to the other place, Members were particularly concerned about conditional fee agreements. It became clear that, if the Government persisted with conditional fee agreements, also known as no win, no fee agreements, the time that it would take to secure the services of a lawyer—who would need to make an assessment and obtain the necessary insurance, if they could get it at all to take on a no win, no fee case—made the proposed seven-day period insufficient. That is why a period of 10 days, which is still short, was inserted. Under the influence of the other place, the Government have considerately suggested that they will not persist with no win, no fee. They said that they would set a tough merits test, which we wholly support as long as we can ensure that that is what appears on the statute book. I therefore accept that there is at least an argument for seven instead of 10 days. However, I am mystified about the Government's determination to maintain a five-day period in which an appeal can be lodged. That must be considered in the overall context of the time periods for processing asylum applications.
	Two points are worth noting. First, in the other place, we tabled an amendment to provide that the Home Office had to make the determination in six weeks. If anything will speed up the asylum process, it is the Government and the Home Office making a determination in six weeks, not three months, six months, nine months or even longer. However, the Government did not want our amendment. They said that they were not prepared to live with the six-week period and, consequently, we do not have it.
	Secondly, we made another suggestion in the other place. At the end of the process, there are often delays before someone is removed because judicial review can still be invoked to delay removal or argue that removal should not take place. We proposed a statutory review procedure to speed that up but the Government rejected it. They said that they were determined to keep the judicial review procedure for the tail end of asylum applications. That threatens to delay the process at the end.
	The Government insisted that they would not have a statutory review procedure at the end of the process and would not stick to a six-week determination process, yet they are fighting over an extra 48 hours so that lawyers can consider whether to launch an application for review or reconsideration. That is odd and I fear that the only reason for it is the cheapest form of No. 10 Downing street spin.
	Throughout the proceedings, the Government have wanted to be able to say, "We're trying and we'll ensure that everything happens quickly. Look at those dreadful people on the Opposition Benches—they're trying to hold up the process." The Prime Minister has presented precisely that sort of cant at the Dispatch Box. I have not heard a proper explanation from the Under-Secretary of why 10 days would make a difference whereas seven days would not.
	I do not know what the other place will do when it reviews the matter. The Government will get their way here and we can do nothing about it. However, I urge the Under-Secretary to reconsider whether we can end our proceedings on the Bill on a note of amity. That is why I tabled the two amendments that proposed seven days. Given that the Government have dropped conditional fee agreements, seven days, although a short period, at least provides a little extra. I hope that the Under-Secretary will examine that proposal positively and listen to other hon. Members' comments on it.
	I believe that the Under-Secretary has resolved my next point, but I want to make our position absolutely clear. We will have nothing to do with a conditional fee system. It cannot work in asylum appeals because it will mean that people are unrepresented. I believe and hope that we have persuaded the Government of that. It is therefore bizarre that the Under-Secretary appeared to be reading from an old text, which clearly suggested that he was still trying to persuade the public that the conditional fee agreement applied. I think that he subsequently explained himself. However, it is clear that the measure will have to revert to this place because a further amendment will be required in the other place to ensure that it covers not only reconsideration but review. In the light of the Under-Secretary's assurances and crystal clear assurances from Lord Filkin, which were the only reason why my noble Friend Lord Kingsland did not press his amendments, I am content to let the matter rest.
	The Under-Secretary will be pleased to learn that we are prepared to accept the other amendments. We are pleased that the Government have conceded that scope should remain for lay members of tribunals. We regard that as essential. We are broadly content that the president can exercise discretion to ensure the presence of lay members to help with the decisions of fact in any case of factual complexity. I hope that the Under-Secretary can assure us that there is no intention through the publication of guidelines or Government pressure to try to influence the president's exercise of discretion. I would expect the president to conduct the hearings fairly and equitably. I shall not seek to oppose the Government.
	I do not wish to take up time because others want to speak. I have broadly covered our response to the Government amendments. The great thing is that the Government have given way on the main issue. For that, they are entitled to take some credit, although it would never have happened without many hon. Members, including the Government's supporters, showing a great deal of courage. It is greatly to their credit that they did so.
	I hope that the Government will respond positively to my points and I look forward to hearing other hon. Members' views about whether the Government are right to push for five rather than 10 days.

Neil Gerrard: First, those of us who argued on Second Reading and on Report that the provisions on appeal were wrong must say to the Government that we are glad that they have listened. A significant shift has taken place. It is a pity that we had to wait until the measure went to another place for it to happen. Hon. Members of all parties who spoke about appeals on Report argued that the Government were wrong. However, I acknowledge that the Government have listened and we are grateful for this significant move.
	Two matters have been flagged up as being of major concern. The first is the number of days for an appeal to be lodged and the second is legal aid. On the second point, I am more confused than when the debate began about the direction that we are taking. The discussion about whether the number of days should be five, seven or 10 resembles that about angels dancing on pinheads. The number is arbitrary. I question whether it would allow a proper appeals system to work. I await the first case after the introduction of the system in which the Home Office fails to meet the five-day target and it wants to appeal against a decision by the tribunal. I am sure that one will occur before too long. The five days apply to the Home Office as much as to an asylum claimant. I should be interested to note the number of such cases.
	I can envisage circumstances in which asylum claimants will experience problems with a five-day timetable. We appear to be moving towards a system whereby asylum claimants are almost encouraged not to worry about getting legal advice, especially at the start of the process. I recently saw a transcript of an asylum seeker induction briefing DVD that is shown to asylum seekers in induction centres. It says about legal advice:
	"You can seek legal advice if you want it; but the Home Office do not believe that you need legal advice to tell Asylum Casework about your reasons for claiming asylum".
	I appreciate that that is at the beginning of the process rather than at appeal, but it does not really encourage people to get their cases presented properly in the first place, which would cut many unnecessary appeals.
	I can also envisage situations in which someone would want to change their lawyer, either because they do not believe that the lawyer who has been dealing with their case when it has gone to the tribunal has handled it properly, or because the lawyer who dealt with that stage was not available, for some reason, to deal with any further reconsideration.

Mark Oaten: The hon. Gentleman has touched on an issue that concerns me. As the process gets more complex, and as the grounds for appeal get more technical and detailed, people may want to switch to much more specialist lawyers. There is a good case, therefore, for individuals to be encouraged to move to a different lawyer to tackle those complex legal arguments.

Neil Gerrard: That may well be the case. I know that there are proposals along with the new systems to produce different levels of accreditation for people handling asylum cases, and I welcome some of what has been done over the past year or two to weed out some of the poor representatives around. I can think of examples from my local citizens advice bureau, which has a legal aid franchise to handle asylum and immigration cases, and in my view does it extremely well, although the person who does most of the work in that CAB does not have a legal qualification. I am sure that, were he faced with the situation of someone who had gone through a tribunal, and if he felt that there might be a point of law on which to argue, he would want to go to someone else to get that specialist advice. Five days will not always be enough to allow people to do that. Although the Minister said that it would be possible to make an application and to try to put an argument that a longer time limit should be allowed, five days is too tight in this area.
	On the question of legal aid and no win, no fee or conditional fee arrangements, I am not sure about the direction in which we are going, given the promise that there will be further reconsideration in the other place. I have had some concerns about the way the amendment that came to us was drafted—it seemed to give extremely wide discretion to the Secretary of State to make regulations that would restrict the exercise of the power to make payments, depending on the outcome of the appeal. One phrase that I still do not understand is
	"the nature of the appellant's legal representatives",
	which would remain even with the Government's proposed amendments.
	If we are to have a merits test, that is the right direction. I do not want cases with absolutely no merit being funded out of public funds. Certainly, I have seen cases in the present system in which solicitors have told asylum claimants who have lost at an adjudicator's appeal that they will put in an application to the immigration appeal tribunal. When one sees the paper that has been sent to the IAT, it has scribbled on it something along the lines of, "The adjudicator made an error in law." That is all that it says. It gives no indication of what the error in law is supposed to be. Clearly, there is no basis on which to assess that, as the argument is about credibility. The adjudicator has made a decision on credibility and the IAT is not going to get involved in an argument about credibility, as it will say that that is a matter for the adjudicator, and not for it.
	I do not have a problem with trying to weed out cases that do not stand up or do not have genuine points of law to argue. One must give the solicitor the opportunity to have a proper merits test, however, and not after the event. That is what worried me about the proposal—decisions would be taken after the event, which would discourage lawyers from taking cases that were 50:50 or that they were doubtful that they would win.
	On the whole issue of appeals, the direction in which we appear to be going still concerns me—we are squeezing appeal rights all the time. It is not encouraging to see a paper from the Department for Constitutional Affairs, issued just a few days ago, about its 2004 research programme, in which asylum was one of the areas in which it was asking for offers of research. It described the current system, and the proposals in the Bill, and went on to say:
	"In the current Bill, the Government had originally proposed a judicial review ouster of IAT decisions. However, the ouster clause was replaced with the arrangement described above",
	which are the arrangements that we now have. It continued:
	"Both lay and expert views are sought on whether asylum seekers and immigrants should have the legal right to challenge Home Office decisions either to a Tribunal or a court."
	If we are getting research done along those lines, I wonder what we will get next on changing appeal rights, on top of the proposals in the Bill.
	The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration has moved significantly. All of us who argued about this section of the Bill tried to say on Second Reading that we could live with a single tier of appeal provided that there was a possibility of changing errors of law and provided that we were not removing the ability of people to go to the appeal courts and higher courts. I welcome the shift that has been made, and I look forward to seeing what we get back on the legal aid sections when we no doubt debate this again, either in a week or two or in the autumn, when the other place has had a chance to have another look at it.

David Heath: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard). As he said, many of us made trenchant criticisms of the Government's initial proposals when we last had the Bill before us. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) has already described the obscenity of the original proposals. The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins), who was with us earlier, described the Bill as
	"not only illiberal but grossly unfair".—[Official Report, 1 March 2004; Vol. 418, c. 721.]
	Unfortunately—I say this is in the gentlest possible way—those two hon. Gentlemen could not quite bring themselves to vote against the Bill, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) and my hon. Friends did at the time. Nevertheless, clearly, a strong view was held on both sides of the House that there was a need to do something about the worst excesses of the original proposals.
	If I welcome the proposals that the Government have now brought forward, I do so only because they are better than the alternative. The grudging way in which the Minister made his statements this evening suggested not so much a repentant sinner as someone who had been dragged kicking and screaming to the House, who had had to make changes because he knew that he would not get the Bill through the other place without them, and who was still not prepared to listen to what people were saying. Hence, we found that we needed further amendments from the other place to bring the Bill into conformity with what some of us felt had already been agreed.
	I will not cover ground that has already been adequately covered by others, as other hon. Members wish to speak. I find it extraordinary, however, that the Government are fussing about the period of 10 working days, and trying to bring it down to five. For heaven's sake, we now have a simplified procedure. How many belts and braces do they need to achieve their objective? Adding another two days, as the hon. Member for Beaconsfield proposes, or leaving the period at 10 days, will make not a ha'p'orth of difference to the efficiency of the system, except in one way. If people are asked to present cases that are ill prepared—if they are asked to find legal assistance within a period that does not allow for that—cases in our courts will be dealt with less effectively, less efficiently and in a way that is less in the interests of justice.

David Lammy: The Government are insisting on the provision because we want to stamp out delay. We should remember that 70 per cent. of people who arrive in this country—Europol's figure, not the Government's—are trafficked by criminal gangs. Why do they come here? Because they are exploiting parts of the system. What is the central part of the system that they are exploiting? Delay.
	It is right for us to go back to basics, to consider what is necessary to lodge an appeal, and to look at the evidence before us. The evidence suggested that six hours were required, and, if the use of counsel was needed, one and a half working days. It was on that basis that we arrived at five days. It was not because the Government had not thought about the issue in depth.

David Heath: Had the Minister been an applicant, he would probably have used one working day with that intervention. I hear what he says, but let me say this to him: if he wants to speed up the process, let him start with the Home Office. Let him get the Home Office working correctly, making proper assessments and presenting cases appropriately. That is how to speed up the process, not denying people the opportunity to make a case that can be made only on grounds of merit, as in the Minister's belt-and-braces proposal. We are talking about meritorious cases, not about people who are exercising some sort of delaying tactic.
	I despair of this Minister, above all, because he never seems to listen to what people say in debates. He pointed out that new section 103A(4) would permit an application outside the specified period. That is true, but the grounds are very limited, involving reasonable practicability. An appeal cannot be made in the interests of justice. I happen to believe that the interests of justice ought to be paramount, but the amendment makes no reference to them. Appeals can be made only in the event of a specific practical problem that cannot be overcome.

Vera Baird: I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern, but surely reasonable practicality is what Opposition Members have been talking about. If there is a change of lawyer, for instance, the question of whether it is reasonably practical for the new lawyer to submit the appeal on time is exactly what we should consider. The amendment hits the nail on the head.

David Heath: All I can say is that I hope so, but I envisage circumstances in which it will not. We should bear in mind that we are dealing, potentially, with matters of life and death. I believe that we have a responsibility to ensure that the interests of justice are upheld in any circumstances on that basis.
	Let me deal briefly with conditionality. All that I heard this evening about fees sounded very much like a conditional system by another name. There are some deeply imponderable proposals. There is, for example, the concept of the near miss. What if the client secures the right result—leave to remain—but by the wrong means? The lawyer, presumably, will be considered to have failed entirely, although he or she will have done the preparatory work, because the client no longer wishes to test the point of law on which an appeal would be held. The client now considers that he or she has secured his or her objective, which is to remain in the country safe from harm or persecution. Is that a near miss? It may not be a miss at all. The matter may not even come to court.
	There is serious anxiety about the possibility that people will not be able to obtain the legal support that they need. I hold no brief for bad practitioners, but how many filters must the Government introduce before they can do the job of weeding out the bad practitioners, leaving those who are genuinely concerned for their clients and want to do a good job? We have the quality controls and the devolved powers that are available to the firms involved, but when there are no devolved powers, the Legal Services Commission will decide the merits of the case in the first place. Are we to suppose that the commission is incapable of deciding whether a case is meritorious? Will it be necessary to wait until the end of the proceedings to find out whether the lawyer contracted, in effect, by the commission will be paid? Who on earth would take a case on that basis? It is unfair to the applicant.
	We have heard mention of the report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and it was pointed out earlier—from a sedentary position—that the Government had responded to its criticisms. I may be corrected, because I have only the briefest acquaintance with the Government's response, but I felt that they had answered some of the criticisms. In fact, I think that that was said explicitly. There did not, however, appear to be a section on clause 14, which we are discussing now. There were serious criticisms that the Government have not addressed. No doubt we shall have to address them, both here and in another place.

Rob Marris: I shall confine my remarks to amendments (a) and (b). I declare an interest: I am a member of the Law Society of England and Wales, although I have not practised law since I was elected three years ago because I do not believe in moonlighting.
	Looking around the Chamber, I see a fair smattering of barristers and some solicitors. I would hazard a guess, although I stand to be corrected, that during my many years of practice I have issued and run more civil proceedings than anyone else present; and I must tell the Government that changing 10 working days to five strikes me as extraordinary. It suggests, for example, that a sole practitioner who is a solicitor is not entitled to go on holiday: such people would be deemed negligent, and could be sued for missing the deadline.
	Since my election, I have written hundreds, if not thousands, of letters to Ministers. I do not recall ever receiving a written acknowledgement within 10 working days, let alone five. I have never received an answer that looked as if it had taken anything like six hours to draft. Ministers are not able to complete six hours of drafting in five working days, but they want those representing asylum applicants to do it. That seems extraordinary.
	I urge both the Government and the Opposition to withdraw their amendments, and stick to the 10 working days proposed by the other place. I think that that is, in any event, a very short time.

Dominic Grieve: I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that I will not take an opportunity to put my amendments to the vote. I tabled them as a sort of tempter, in an attempt to entice the Minister to explain his obsession with five days and suggest an alternative. Clearly, however, if that is unacceptable to the Government, it is unacceptable to the Government.

Rob Marris: I will not comment further on that. Let me end by asking the Minister to assure us that his ministerial correspondence is answered within 10 working days—which is being generous to him—and that all of it is answered within that time.

Annabelle Ewing: As many Members have pointed out, the clause has been greatly improved since Second Reading, Committee and Report, although I still have some concerns, not least that reconsideration will be handled by the same tribunal and that there is a lack of provision for oral submissions.
	On the key outstanding issue, I find it quite incredible that the Government insist on a period of five working days. We are dealing with a right of appeal, which is much more important than mere administrative convenience. The Government have begun by making a series of unsound and unrealistic assumptions. As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) pointed out, the provision seems to take no account of the fact that the lawyer concerned might be a sole practitioner who is on holiday; nor does it take account of the practitioner's case load or of the possible complexity of a case. Citing repeatedly an average time of six hours is meaningless in a field such as law, in which each case must be dealt with as it comes and on its merits.

David Lammy: Has the hon. Lady not read proposed new section 103A(4)(b), which allows the judge discretion in the rare circumstances in which the five-day deadline cannot be met?

Annabelle Ewing: I have, but the point is that if one sets a deadline for appeal, it will be the norm; such discretion will, by definition, operate on a discretionary basis. I do not know why the Minister appears not to understand that basic point about our legal system.
	This is a very important issue and as has been pointed out, the existing period of 10 working days is already a very short one within which to be required to bring an appeal. The other place will insist on this matter, and we will have to discuss it again. In the light of the clause's history, I expected the Minister to have learned a little humility, but he obviously has not.
	I am pleased to note that the Bill's legal aid provisions do not seem to apply to Scotland. That is entirely proper, because the Scottish legal aid system is a matter for the Scottish Parliament. As I understand it, I have received an assurance from the Government that no hidden small print seeks to apply such provisions to Scotland, and I am very pleased that the Scottish Parliament will decide how to administer its legal aid system.

Vera Baird: How is the Scottish Parliament to decide whether there will be a way to allocate legal aid in time for an appeal, if, as the hon. Lady agrees, the time limit for an appeal must itself be very short? Surely the reason why such aid will be ex post facto legal aid is that there is no time beforehand for an independent examination of the merits. She does not have the escape clause that she fancies she has.

Annabelle Ewing: I was talking about the broad policy and the question of whether we in Scotland would wish to go down the road of a conditional, or "no win, no fee", legal aid system. Such policy will be decided not by this place but, quite properly, by the Scottish Parliament. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Harris) says from a sedentary position that that is the consequence of devolution, and quite so, but the problem is that some 60-plus Sewel motions have delegated our legislation-making competence to Westminster. That is an important point, but I shall not go down that route tonight. The Minister will have heard my comments about the number of days, and I hope that the Government will show a little flexibility.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I am grateful for the opportunity to make a short and sad contribution to this short and sad debate. It is sad because I had looked forward to the unusual—indeed, unique—experience of offering my unalloyed and unadulterated congratulations to the Government. I had thought this an entirely appropriate moment to do so, not least because I expected the Chamber to be nearly empty. It is also a sad occasion because I have immeasurable respect for my hon. Friend the Minister, who, of course, did not have the burden of carrying this iniquitous Bill through its early stages. It would indeed have been a worthy occasion on which to congratulate him, as it is the first time that I have seen him on the Front Bench in his current role. Unhappily, I am unable to do so, and to explain why that is so, it is necessary to look back at the history of the Bill.
	On Second Reading and on Report, we had a magnificent debate on what is an historic matter. Had the Government succeeded, it would have been the first time since the days of the Star Chamber that a public tribunal was relieved of the responsibility of judicial review. The debate had enormous historic undercurrents, and it was characterised by strong speeches in this Chamber and the usual vulgar abuse outside about wet liberalism versus authoritarian government. It was enormous fun because, as most of us realised, the Government were bound to give in; otherwise, they would have provoked the biggest constitutional crisis for 300 years. They were told as much when the Bill got to the House of Lords, and when they gave in, my noble Friend Lord Falconer also gave in with characteristic charm and emollience. Indeed, in doing so he found time to pay a little credit to the Back Benchers in this House who had attempted to assist him, for which we were enormously grateful.
	So when I heard what Lord Falconer had to say, I looked forward to coming to this Chamber in order, on an historic note for me, to congratulate the Government. Unhappily, that is not possible because of their amendment (a), which characteristically states:
	"leave out '10 working' and insert '5'.
	It is, in truth, a miserable, snivelling little amendment that has no valid reason behind it. It is entirely meretricious, and it smacks of petulance. As all who know about the law realise, there will as a result of it virtually always be applications to extend the time limit. The burden on the tribunal and on lawyers will be immensely increased, rather than decreased.
	The question of a five-day or 10-day limit is entirely arbitrary. When I asked the Minister, who was doing his best in the circumstances, what the perceived wisdom of the five-day limit was, the answer, I am afraid, was grossly unsatisfactory. He said that it does not give people the chance to shop around. The idea that an asylum seeker who cannot speak English and needs assistance can shop around in 10 working days but not in five is pure myopia, and the Minister knows it. This is a wholly arbitrary and unnecessary qualification. Ten days is too short a time limit, but one could have lived with it. A limit of five days is simply an attempt on the part of the Government to save a certain amount of face, and I am very sorry that they have chosen to do that.
	Notwithstanding what I have said, I will support this measure, but I will not be able to go through the Lobby with that light skip in the step that I hoped to be able to employ. Unhappily, I shall go through with the more familiar leaden feet.

Vera Baird: I am sorry that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) feels unable to let go and to congratulate the Government in the wholehearted way that I know he has been longing to do for many months, whenever possible. This measure is such a lot better than it first was that "congratulations" is the lowest point at which one can pitch one's approach to it. It is better not to be mealy mouthed, although no one could accuse my hon. and learned Friend of that: care, consideration and detailed conversations have helped to clarify this measure, which is now as good as it is going to get. There will be an independent appellate process, which is the most important thing; to be honest, time limits are much more of a minor-key issue. They will be applied where appropriate, via what I am satisfied is a tough merits test.
	I am worried about the time limit of five days. To be honest, I cannot see why anyone is arguing about whether it should be five days or 10. There does not seem to be any principle to be found here. Surely 10 days is short enough, so what is the advantage of having five instead? I do not understand why the Government are sticking out for that.
	I understand, although I do not especially care for, the allocation of legal aid ex post facto, but it seems to me that we cannot have one without the other, and if an appeal's time runs out in 10 days, there is no time for an application for legal aid to test the merits in the meantime. That is a funny idea, running in the opposite direction from other aspects of the legal system. The new criminal defence legislation says that criminal legal aid, currently awarded by the courts, will go instead to the Legal Services Commission, which is where the decisions under discussion are currently made. The Government are running contrary to the thread of what I consider a proper policy route.
	However, there it is. We cannot really have time for an application for legal aid if we are going to have a very short appeal application time, so everyone must accept that if they want to be sweet about the one, they must be sweet about the other. I am sure that the judiciary will exercise the proper discretion and will understand which cases were worth bringing, even though they were not successful. I do not foresee great problems about that.
	Frankly, lawyers such as myself—I should have declared an interest, although I did not do much in the way of asylum work until I was confronted with it as a constituency Member—will have to take the cases that they think in all conscience should be taken and simply get on with them, trusting that they can convince the courts after the event that they were right to do so—
	It being one and a quarter hours after the commencement of proceedings, Madam Deputy Speaker proceeded to put the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that hour, pursuant to Order [this day].
	Government amendments (a) to (g) to Lords amendment No. 28 agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 28, as amended, agreed to.
	Government amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 62 agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 62, as amended, agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 42 to 44 and 46 disagreed to.
	Government amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment No. 46 agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 61 disagreed to.
	Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu of Lords amendments Nos. 42 to 44 and 61 agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 29, 45 and 47 to 60 agreed to.
	Lords amendment: No. 15.

Humfrey Malins: I beg to move amendment (a) to the Lords amendment.

Madam Deputy Speaker: With this we may consider amendments (b), (c) and (e) to the Lords amendment.

Humfrey Malins: The first three amendments are essentially probing, but I shall seek to divide the House on amendment (e), on prescribing the circumstances that constitute a breach of a requirement to participate in community activities, if the Government are not prepared to accept it.
	The new clauses inserted by the Government in another place are broadly welcome, because any reasonable person would support the proposition that people should, where they are able, give something back to the community that has been supporting them. Having offered general support, I shall be a little unkind and say to the Government that I am disappointed and disillusioned by the approach that they have taken in introducing changes so late in the proceedings. There has been no meaningful consultation and not one of these new provisions has ever been debated in this Chamber, in Committee or on Report.
	It is worth remembering that we started the Committee stage on 8 January. At that stage, the Bill was about 25 to 28 clauses long, and it has now almost doubled in size to 50. Many hon. Members of all parties—I see the hon. Members for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Harris) and for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) here today—would have welcomed the chance to debate these provisions in Committee.
	In the other place, my noble Friend Baroness Anelay referred to a "torrent" of new clauses and policies being made up on the hoof. Today, we have about two and a quarter hours to debate up to seven major new add-ons to the Bill. It is a pity that we have so little time. Lord Rooker said that the Commons
	"will have adequate time—rightly so, because when the Bill goes back it will have a substantial chunk of amendments sent from the Committee here. There has to be proper scrutiny in the other place."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 June 2004; Vol. 662, c. 650.]
	He was right. There will not be enough time properly to scrutinise the clause, particularly in relation to the provision of accommodation being dependent on work done.
	I do not expect the Government to apologise, but I hope that they will be able to give us some reason as to why these major new policies were not in their heads last December, when they could have been put into the Bill for Second Reading; in January this year, when the Bill went into Committee; or at Report stage.
	Although we offer a broad welcome to the principle behind the clause, I turn now to my amendments, which are essentially probing. Amendments (a) and (b) would require the Government to consult a wide range of bodies before introducing the provision on work being linked to the right to accommodation. Amendment (b) lists those bodies—they include Citizens Advice and others of some importance. Some are relevant because of their experience in the refugee world—for example, the Immigration Advisory Service and the Refugee Council. Some are particularly relevant to the issue of work in the community—that is why I included the probation service, which runs what are now called community punishment orders and were hitherto called community service orders. Some have useful knowledge about specific work that would benefit a community in which the asylum seeker lives—I refer to the Local Government Association. I do not think that the Government had a prolonged period of consultation with any of those organisations; if they did, I must have missed it. Why not, and will they undertake, even at this late stage, to do so?
	Amendment (c) would require the Government to explain exactly how they propose to link accommodation with work. I am not clear what they mean by subsection (b) of the clause, which says that regulations may
	"provide for the continuation of the provision of accommodation to be subject to other conditions".
	That is extremely vague.
	The most important amendment, by which I should like to test the opinion of the House, is amendment (e). The general sense of the clause is that the Government will require some failed asylum seekers to undertake some community work or activity as a condition of keeping their accommodation. What will happen if he fails to do the work, fails to do it properly or does not turn up? In the criminal justice world, criteria would be in place to judge what constitutes, for example, failure on the part of a person who is subject to a community service order. In this case, however, if a Home Office official takes the view that the person is not complying properly with the work that they have been asked to do, he can take their accommodation away. Can that possibly be right? If so, it is a somewhat sorry state of affairs.
	Amendment (e) would require the Government to prescribe the circumstances that would constitute a breach of a requirement to participate in community activities. If they are unable to include that in the Bill, they could provide for the making of regulations. But here we are, at the eleventh hour, with the whole House of Commons potentially present for the debate—I say "potentially", because it is always a pleasure to speak to a packed House—and we still do not know. The amendment would remedy that.
	How many failed asylum seekers will be covered by the provision? As I understand it, they will be those who are here because they cannot reasonably be removed from the country. Can the Minister tell us not only how many he thinks there are, but which countries they have come from? The Government cannot readily or properly remove many of those who fail in their asylum claim. Zimbabwe is a case in point. In the early part of 2003, the Government suspended removals to Zimbabwe. I thank them for doing so because the situation there rendered it unsatisfactory for people to return to that country.

Neil Gerrard: I believe that the people involved would be those who are now described as receiving National Asylum Support Service hard case support. The question is not so much that of how many failed asylum seekers from such countries are not being returned, but of how many apply for and get hard case support. All the figures that I have seen suggest that their numbers are quite small, and that many of those who might be eligible for that support either do not apply for it or are refused.

Humfrey Malins: The hon. Gentleman, whose expertise in such matters is well known and well respected by the whole House, suggests that we are talking about failed asylum seekers in receipt of hard case support. I understand that. However, if we were in Committee and had plenty of time, the Minister would be asked to deal with the whole scenario of failed asylum seekers who cannot be removed and the duties that are placed on them. The purpose of the debate is to try to draw out some of the Government's reasoning—for example, would those who are not in receipt of hard case support be exempt from the provisions, and if so, why? When the issue of failed asylum seekers who cannot properly be removed cropped up in the other place, questions were put to Ministers about their position, as is proper.
	Of course, the Government face difficulties in removing failed asylum seekers to Iraq and to Afghanistan; they sometimes, but not always, go on the assisted voluntary return package. There are sometimes difficulties in returning Somalis. As the Minister has acknowledged, and as a recent parliamentary question revealed, there are difficulties in removing people to China. The same is true of Iran, despite the fact that that country is a signatory to the Chicago convention. The position is not easy.
	It was said in the other place that only a few hundred people are relevant to the clause. However, given that this is the last opportunity that this House will have to consider the clause, which was never debated in Committee, it would be helpful if the Minister clarified the numbers involved.

Jeremy Corbyn: It is not just a question of the numbers—of whether it is 10, 500, or whatever—because an important principle is involved. If people who are not allowed to work legally are to be forced to work in a voluntary capacity to carry out unspecified tasks, that is surely a step that has never been taken before.

Humfrey Malins: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, and indeed I was going to make it myself in my own way—although perhaps not so effectively—in a moment. I suppose that the issue of the numbers was the first point, if not the most important, that occurred to me. There are more important points of principle, to which I will come in a moment. Surely what we are talking about is a system of directed labour for those who have not been before our courts and convicted of a criminal offence, and for whom the penalty of failing to comply with the work order—the directed labour—is loss of accommodation. That is a serious matter. They are being told, "Do the work, otherwise you'll lose your accommodation."

Tom Harris: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that such individuals have committed no criminal offence, but does he agree that, as failed asylum seekers—illegal immigrants, in other words—they are outwith the law by being in the country at all?

Humfrey Malins: I understand that we are talking about failed asylum seekers in receipt of hard case support, but the important principle is that we are telling people to do the work or lose their accommodation. I do not know whether any other EU country has that system; I would be glad if the Minister told me.
	As I mentioned in relation to the amendment on which I want to test the House's opinion, I do not see any criteria in the Bill for judging whether the work has been done properly and efficiently. Also, who on earth is to make that judgment? That troubles me a bit, because I do not feel particularly easy with a situation in which a Home Official can say, "Go and do this, and do it on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday." There is nothing in the Bill about how often the work has to be done—or indeed where. There has been some reference in debate to the fact that it might be done locally, but, equally, Lord Rooker said, as reported in Hansard, that it might have to be done in another area. I do not feel particularly easy about the fact that when there is a decision as to whether someone loses their accommodation because they do not do the work properly—says an official—that decision is made by an official against whom there is apparently no right of appeal to any judicial person.
	What has the Minister got to say about the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, published only about a week ago? We are talking about a Joint Committee involving, I would say, leading members of all parties, including the Government party. The Minister will know that that Committee was unanimously scathing about the Government's approach to this and other clauses. It concluded that there is a significant risk that making the provision of accommodation to failed asylum seekers conditional on the performance of community work would be in breach of the prohibition of "forced or compulsory labour" in paragraph 2 of article 4 of the European convention on human rights.
	In the other place, Lord Rooker said—I do not quote him exactly, but give the gist of what he said—that, if he were an Opposition Member, he would be absolutely furious if there was not a full Government response to the Joint Committee's report in time for this debate. I mentioned in my point of order that he, as a Minister, said in terms that there was a prospect of the Government's treatment of the House of Lords being one of contempt.
	The Government have, I think, responded by letter—I have not had chance to digest it fully—in relation to the Human Rights Act 1998 point on whether there is breach of paragraph 2 of article 4 of the European convention on human rights. My understanding is that the lawyers advising the Joint Committee say that there was a significant risk of a breach, but that the Government take the view that that is not the case. Let me ask the Government this: who are the lawyers who advise the Joint Committee and what is their standard of advice? Are they right or wrong? Who are the lawyers who advise the Government and are they right or wrong? What chance does the House really have today to consider the position in respect of a possible breach under paragraph 2 of article 4? Let us hear from the Government on that point in due course, please.
	Let us also hear from the Government about the work that these—to some extent unfortunate—people will have to undertake. Who will select the work? What kind of work will it be, and who will monitor it? Who will enforce attendance? What will the cost be and is there a maximum period for which they will have to do the work?
	As I have mentioned, the nearest parallel in the criminal justice system is what used to be the community service order, now called the community punishment order, under which a court can tell a convicted defendant to perform unpaid work for the benefit of the community for a minimum of 40 hours and a maximum of, I think, 240 hours. That order is administered and supervised by the probation service. If the probation service thinks that there has been a breach, it brings the matter back before the court, which has to make a determination on the point. I want to learn from the Government exactly what the parallel points are with the scheme that they suggest.
	I have a feeling that the proposal to make failed asylum seekers work as a condition of their accommodation may not really involve anything worth doing; I think that the work might just be something to do. I do not see that there will necessarily be huge benefits, and I am concerned about the costs. Anyway, we have not yet heard what the costs of the procedure will be. I do not know whether the Government think that the failed asylum seekers in question will have the skills to do the work that they are required to do. Let the Government tell us exactly what that work will be.
	I have been trying to calculate what the cost might be of putting a failed asylum seeker in receipt of hard case support through the work programme. I simply do not have the resources available to find out whether it will be expensive, but I was able to do a little research on the community punishment order. According to the London probation service website, the average cost for a community punishment order is £1,500 per defendant. Those figures, incidentally, do not tally with the information that the Government gave about a week ago, when Baroness Scotland explained that the average cost of a 40-hour community punishment order—the minimum duration—is £706. However, we are confused about costs because a costing exercise undertaken in 2002–03 with local probation boards suggested that the average length of a community punishment order is 116½ hours and the average cost is £2,005.
	For how long would someone be required to do the work? Would it be weeks or months? With what frequency would they be required to work? The Minister has a duty to tell us a bit more about the proposal. How many hours a week would be involved? Has he any idea? Does he feel able to tell us about the expense involved in the scheme?
	Those are important questions and I hope that others in the House will want to ask questions of the Minister. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, one cannot have an objection in principle to the idea of people putting something back into a community in respect of what they are taking from it. Nevertheless, all of us should try to scrutinise the legislation carefully.
	I conclude my remarks on that note. I have posed many questions, which I hope the Minister will be able to answer in the course of the debate. I hope that he will take on board with acclamation the various amendments that I tabled, and in particular that he will give an absolute commitment to the House that my amendment (e) will be accepted by the Government and incorporated into the Bill forthwith; otherwise it will be necessary to test the opinion of the House.

Des Browne: In my remarks I shall endeavour to deal with the issues raised by the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) and to anticipate some of the matters that might be raised by right hon. and hon. Members, such as the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
	I should say at the outset, and it will come as no surprise to anyone, that the Government agree with the Lords in amendment No. 15 and disagree with amendments (a) to (e). That may mean that we need to divide at some stage this evening, but that would surprise me, given that when the matter was discussed in the other place, Baroness Scotland wrote to Baroness Anelay on 2 July explaining in some detail our views on the issues raised by amendment (e) on withdrawal of support. As a result, Baroness Anelay subsequently withdrew her amendment on Third Reading in the Lords. But I suppose that what the Opposition do in this House need not necessarily be consistent with what they do in another place.
	As the hon. Member for Woking rightly identified, new clause 15 enables the Secretary of State to make regulations specifying additional criteria to be used in determining whether to provide, or continue to provide, accommodation to failed asylum seekers under section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The House will be aware that that is commonly referred to as hard case support.
	It is important to state at the outset of my contribution that hard case support is available by and large to single failed asylum seekers who have come to the end of the asylum process, including any appeal, and have had their claim finally rejected. Other than a handful of cases—for example, where a mother has given birth shortly after existing support has ceased—families will not be in receipt of section 4 support. I shall come to that in more detail later. It would be helpful if we did not have hon. Members creating the spectre of families being subjected even to such limited conditionality, which I do not believe can be described in the extravagant way in which it has been described by others.

Mark Oaten: Perhaps we can clarify that once and for all. I interpret the Minister's remarks to mean that individuals who have to look after a child would not be forced to work as part of those conditions. He says it is unlikely that they would apply to individuals in that category, but can he state that even if people fell within that category, they would not have to work?

Des Browne: We are told that time for debate is limited and I am reluctant to repeat what I have already said. I made it perfectly clear that hard case support is available to single failed asylum seekers, and other than a handful of cases—for example, where a mother has given birth shortly after existing support has ceased and she has already been in receipt of section 4 support—families will not be in receipt of section 4 support. So they do not come into the category of people to whom the conditionality applies. I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands the provisions of the existing support, and I do not propose to take any more time by explaining them. From the lack of reaction of other and very knowledgeable Members, I suspect they understand the distinction.
	There are already conditions attached to the provision of hard case support; it does not come on its own. For example, failed asylum seekers must continue to co-operate with efforts to return them to their country of origin. The conditions are set out clearly in policy bulletins published by the National Asylum Support Service and we now advise failed asylum seekers routinely of the availability of section 4 support.
	It may be appropriate to give the House some sense of the scale of the proposals and the number of people who will be affected, which I have been asked directly and indirectly. Since January 2004 there have been in total 945 applications for section 4 support, and there are currently fewer than 500 people receiving section 4 support. It is not to be concluded from that, as some people do in this area of policy, that half the applications were refused. I have no idea how many applications were refused, but there are fewer than 500 people receiving the support at present.
	I was asked which countries those people come from. They come from a wide range of countries—including the countries identified by the hon. Member for Woking—where there are difficulties, particularly in re-documenting citizens of those countries for return. However, the key point about the provisions is not the countries that people come from, but how the provisions relate to the individual circumstances. I repeat that we routinely advise failed asylum seekers of the availability of section 4 support. There is no reluctance to give that support to people who are entitled to it.
	The new clause allows regulations to make the continuation of hard case support dependent upon a person's performing or participating in community activities; to place the existing criteria for provision of such support on a statutory footing; and to provide for a right of appeal to the asylum support adjudicator against a decision not to provide support or against termination of support under section 4.

Jeremy Corbyn: Does my hon. Friend have any estimate of the number of people who might be eligible for hard case support but do not wish to participate in putative removal, so simply disappear? Has he any estimate of the costs of administering a system that will apparently apply to a maximum of 500 people?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend pointed out in an earlier intervention—not on me—that there is a point of principle involved. That will presumably be the focus of the bulk of his contribution to the debate. The matter is as much a point of principle for the Government as it is for others who seek to adopt other principles in relation to it. I shall refer to that later. The principle was established in this context for reasons other than numerical reasons.
	To answer my hon. Friend's first point—I think he was making a rhetorical debating point, rather than expecting a detailed answer from me—without examining the individual circumstances of all failed asylum seekers, I am not in a position to know whether they qualify for section 4 support. That depends on their applications and the processing of those applications, so I cannot give him the figures. If he wants to know how many people fail in their application for asylum, those figures are available and are published quarterly.

Neil Gerrard: I understand my hon. Friend's point that from the Government's viewpoint, this is a matter of principle, but if we are setting up systems, do we not want them to provide value for the money to be spent on them? Is it implied that people in receipt of hard case support will be required to go to certain places to live? If they are scattered across the country through dispersal, the system will become an administrative nightmare to operate and ineffective in terms of return for the cost.

Des Browne: My hon. Friend makes an important point. In the course of my contribution, which is designed to be as comprehensive as it can be given all the circumstances, I hope to address all the points that he makes. He ought not to, and I do not believe he does, accidentally lead the House to believe that those who are already on section 4 support decide where they will go. They do not.

Neil Gerrard: No.

Des Browne: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's agreement to that. Recipients of the support do not decide where they will go. It is a directive process. People in receipt of that support are required to live in certain accommodation and to that extent there will be no difference. My hon. Friend is right, however, to suggest that this part of the process involves public money and will be required to give value for money. Value for money can be judged in a number of ways, and I hope that when he hears everything that I have to say, he will be persuaded that this process will be fair to everyone including the taxpayers of the United Kingdom, and that it will not make unreasonable demands on people who have been given support—which some people might say they were not entitled to, although I am not saying that—when they have reached the end of the process. Many of those people could return voluntarily to their country in different circumstances, and they should give something back in return for that support.
	Let me develop these arguments in the order in which I have laid them out, rather than jumping back and forth, in the hope that I can cover the points that have been raised by various hon. Members and persuade them of the appropriateness of this policy.
	The Government need to explain the rationale behind these provisions, and I agree with the hon. Member for Woking that it is not ideal to introduce substantive amendments to a Bill at a late stage. In my experience of the United Kingdom Parliament, however, it is not unknown. I have watched legislation being introduced here for many years, and the introduction of amendments at a late stage is not ideal but it happens a lot and for a variety of purposes. Having done that on this occasion, however, the Government did something relatively unusual, in that we offered the new measures for consideration in the other place on recommitment. Indeed, they were debated extensively in Committee, on Report and on Third Reading there. It is also our intention that they will be subject to further consultation before regulations are introduced, and that the regulations will be introduced using the affirmative resolution procedure.
	We remain committed to the principle of offering support under section 4 to failed asylum seekers who, for certain specified reasons, are not immediately in a position to leave the UK. For example, if a person cannot return home because there is no viable route, and provided that they are complying with re-documentation procedures and co-operating with efforts to help them to return voluntarily, we should in the interim be prepared to give them support to insure against destitution. However, we believe that it is right to require persons in receipt of state support to give something back to the community in return for their board and lodging. We have made it absolutely clear that we do not see this as a punishment, and it is unhelpful for people to cite analogies relating to punishments delivered by the criminal courts. This is about a person occupying himself or herself—it will mostly be himself—usefully and not expecting to receive something for nothing.
	Proposed new subsection (6)(a) therefore provides that the regulations made under the section may include a requirement for receipt of support to be conditional on a person performing or participating in community activities. Community activities are defined as activities that appear to the Secretary of State to be beneficial to the public, or to a section of the public. Tackling the culture of "something for nothing" runs through Government policy—the new deal is a prime example—but that may manifest itself in different ways.
	Failed asylum seekers in receipt of support under section 4 are in a different position from UK citizens. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Harris) pointed out, they are not entitled to remain here permanently and will at some point return home, even if they are unable to do so immediately. However, in one sense, the requirement for them to give back to the community that supports them is even clearer than it is for other people. Their asylum claim has failed and they have no right to remain in the UK. If they are then to receive state support during this period—for example, while they co-operate with efforts to arrange their return—we need to ask what is the best way for them to give something back to the community that is supporting them. We believe that the best way is for them to engage in activities for the benefit of the community in which they are staying.

Jeremy Corbyn: rose—

Mark Oaten: rose—

Des Browne: I shall allow both interventions in a minute.
	The Government believe that it is essential for continuing social cohesion that the public have confidence in the asylum system. The UK must continue to offer sanctuary to those who have a well-founded fear of persecution. However, both social cohesion and public support for our international obligations can be undermined when failed asylum seekers—those who by definition have no right to remain in the United Kingdom—are receiving state support while giving nothing back. If hon. Members are in any doubt about that, they should see my postbag on the subject.
	It is true that, generally speaking, hard case support is available only as an interim measure when return is not immediately possible. However, there is a real danger that public concern about state support continuing to be offered to failed asylum seekers who have no right to remain in the UK could fuel misconceptions and prejudices about other asylum and immigration issues, which could have adverse effects on social cohesion in particular communities. To maintain confidence in the system, and to protect social cohesion at local level, taxpayers need to be satisfied that those receiving state support acknowledge the cost to others and the attendant responsibilities that are placed on them. By participating in community activities, failed asylum seekers will be occupying themselves purposefully. This will reduce the potential for tension that could otherwise surface.

Jeremy Corbyn: I have a number of asylum seekers in my constituency whose application has failed, and who are hard cases who cannot be returned to the country from which they came. They would like to go back but it is simply not safe for them to do so, and they want to work while they are here. They want to get a job and contribute through taxation, and to live a normal, respectable life in our society. I cannot understand why we do not allow that, rather than developing a whole new bureaucracy to make people work for nothing.

Des Browne: I shall come specifically to my hon. Friend's point in due course. We need to answer the question why these people are not allowed to work in the labour market, and I shall seek to do so, but not at this stage of my argument. I give way to the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten).

Mark Oaten: I was going to make the same point as the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn).

Tom Harris: Will my hon. Friend the Minister give way?

Des Browne: Only if it is not on the same point.

Tom Harris: At the risk of asking the Minister to repeat himself, can he confirm that only those in receipt of section 4 payments under the 1999 Act will be eligible for this so-called work-for-accommodation scheme? Can he also confirm that nobody who has been refused asylum and who has a safe route of return to their original country—for example, Turkey or Kosovo—will be eligible under this scheme?

Des Browne: There might be some misunderstanding of these arguments beyond these four walls, but I do not think that there is any doubt in the Chamber as to exactly who we are talking about here. The obligations placed on those who have a safe route of return and whose asylum application has failed are entirely different from those placed on people who have no safe route of return or cannot be re-documented, but who are co-operating. The arguments about social cohesion are vital when considering the value for money of a scheme of this nature. The benefits of social cohesion are not easily quantifiable, but they are nevertheless enormously important and must not be overlooked.
	I think that this is chronologically the right point at which to turn to the Opposition amendments. Amendments (a) and (b) would require the Secretary of State to consult seven specific organisations before making regulations. We have already agreed with the view expressed in another place that we should consult widely before laying regulations, but we do not consider that the amendments are necessary. I do not see the added value of a statutory requirement to consult the groups specified. There are likely to be a number of other organisations whose views will be helpful to us, and I would be reluctant to set out on the face of the Bill the names of particular organisations without a more detailed assessment of the criteria for so doing. There are many bodies whose expertise we can utilise, including refugee organisations, those responsible for volunteering and those operating the new deal. In respect of the latter, the context is of course very different, but there are clearly lessons that we can learn about structure and organisation. That is what I am referring to here.
	We need to be flexible in the way in which we consult. We have to take account of the fact that the number of people in receipt of hard case support can vary, and that there are different numbers in different parts of the country. I do not therefore envisage one structure being applicable in all areas. Furthermore, the clause enables us to roll out the provisions in different areas at different times so we can assess, if need be, how the scheme is working with one type of structure in a particular area before applying it beyond that area. We also need to be flexible in terms of the ways in which failed asylum seekers are able to fulfil the requirement to contribute. Again, we hope to benefit from consulting refugee organisations and non-governmental organisations, in terms of building a framework in which failed asylum seekers can contribute in ways that reflect any specific skills that they might have—making it more fulfilling for them and more productive for the community.
	At present, the central case is that we anticipate the community activity being carried out in the immediate environment of someone receiving support. It might involve contributing to the upkeep or maintenance of their own accommodation, for example. We will also consider work on facilities that are close to their accommodation—facilities that may be used by the failed asylum seekers themselves. In short, the local community will see that failed asylum seekers are putting something back into their immediate environment, and the failed asylum seekers will be occupying themselves purposefully during the time that they are supported.
	I want now to deal with the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, published on 5 July, which engages specifically with the issue of forced labour.

Humfrey Malins: Could the Minister provide us—he has not told us so far—with examples of the sort of work that would be expected? He has not given us an example or told us about the frequency with which the work would have to be done. Also, who would decide on a breach and what would constitute a breach? Who would determine whether support should be withdrawn? Those matters have not been fleshed out either here or in the other place.

Des Browne: They will be fleshed out during the consultation and under the regulations pertaining to this part of the Bill. [Interruption.] They will, and we will proceed on the basis of positive resolution. Although I have gone to some lengths to stress that I want a degree of flexibility in developing the policy further, I can say that I have in mind about 15 to 20 hours a week, or thereabouts. I have given generic and descriptive examples of the sort of activity that is intended, and at this stage I do not want to be any more specific than that.
	Let me turn to the issue of forced labour. First, I responded in some detail in an 11-page letter to the valuable and helpful report produced by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I say that it is valuable and helpful, but it does set the Government some difficulties in respect of explanation. It was, of course, precisely on account of such difficulties that the Joint Committee on Human Rights was formed. As one of the original members of that Committee, I am proud of the work that it has since done—including during the time when I was not a member.
	In response to those who understand that report, may I say that we accept that article 4(2) of the European convention on human rights, which states that no one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour, must be interpreted in the light of the International Labour Organisation definition, according to which forced labour is
	"all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily"?
	However, we simply do not accept that this scheme is exacting worker service under the menace of a "penalty" within the meaning of that definition. Engaging in community activity is not a penalty; it is the contribution that a person is expected to make in return for assistance from the state.
	In any event, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights has identified, it is clear from past judgments of the European Court of Human Rights that what constitutes "forced or compulsory labour" is determined by whether the obligation is "unjust or oppressive". We do not accept that requiring failed asylum seekers to carry out the sorts of activities that are envisaged is unjust or oppressive. It is not unjust. In fact, it is quite the opposite to say that, if people are being supported by society, they must be prepared, if only to a limited degree, to give something back; and it is not oppressive to expect people to contribute by performing or participating in community activities, particularly when those activities relate to the environment in which they themselves live.

Mark Oaten: I understand that what the Minister has described would not fall foul of human rights provisions, but if the Government are planning to put in place some sort of penalty for failure to carry out the community work, would that not risk failing to comply with those provisions?

Des Browne: I shall come on to that as I develop my arguments, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his recognition that some of the more extravagant ways of describing what the Government are trying to do here do not apply. I am grateful for his implied concession that this sort of activity could not be described as forced labour.
	I reiterate that this requirement is not a punishment. It forms part of a wider policy of encouraging the ethos of "something for something" and encouraging people to be active contributors to the community in which they live, rather than just seeing it—or, more importantly, being seen to do so—as a resource to be drawn down from. Participation in community activities is merely another way in which someone gives something back to society in return for society giving something to them—a long-held principle of social provision in this country. We consider that to require some contribution of failed asylum seekers along the lines proposed does not go beyond what could readily be characterised as a normal and entirely reasonable obligation, so it does not fall within the scope of article 4(2).
	In fact, I do not think that we should automatically assume, as some have, that the measure will be entirely unwelcome. Some have assumed that, since many in this group—failed asylum seekers seeking section 4 support—will, by definition, shortly be leaving the UK, they will have no interest in benefiting the community by participating in such activities. However, I know that the point has already been made forcefully in the other place that they surely do have an interest in occupying themselves purposefully while they remain here.
	As I have already indicated, there will be a deal of flexibility in the way that failed asylum seekers are able to fulfil the obligation to contribute, and we will be consulting refugee groups on how to provide opportunities that utilise the specific skills that failed asylum seekers might have, such that the work that they do will be both more fulfilling for them and more productive for the community. Of course, the fundamental point is that, if the taxpayer is prepared to pay for their board and lodging during this period, it is right that something be given in return. I see no reason why that principle should not be respected. I assure hon. Members that I am coming on to deal with withdrawal of support.

Humfrey Malins: Before moving on from the Joint Committee report, will the Minister tell us who advised the Committee that there was a significant risk of a breach of human rights provisions? Who advised the Government that they were wrong?

Des Browne: The hon. Gentleman knows fine well that the Government do not reveal their sources or the content of their legal advice. He has been fingering a copy of the Joint Committee report for some time. If he looks through it, he will see that the staff of the Committee, including specialists and others, are free to take advice from any source that they want. I know that when I was a member of the Committee, it took standing advice from an eminent academic lawyer in the field of human rights, and I suspect that it still has such advice.
	It is not for me to identify the source, however. Those who have the report can read it for themselves. [Interruption.] I practised law for 25 years before I came to this place and I practised much litigation in the courts, as an advocate and solicitor, without having to resort to accusing people who were arguing a different point of view from mine of being wrong. Lawyers are well able to argue their position and tell others to decide which position they prefer. In this place, too, we do not resort in the main to that sort of argumentation. There are different points of view here. The Government have a point of view. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has a point of view—and there is continuing dialogue between the Government and that Committee. The Government put their position forward and, ultimately, this place is the court of decision and those who go through the Division Lobbies are the judges.

Jeremy Corbyn: A few minutes ago, the Minister mentioned the International Labour Organisation conventions. In the consultation exercise, will he consult the ILO, and if its opinion is that what the Government are doing is outwith its declarations, will the Government decide not to proceed to regulate?

Des Browne: It is not my intention to consult the ILO, but I have not yet decided exactly whom the Government will consult, although there will be extensive consultation.
	To get back to the withdrawal of support, amendment (e) would insert a provision for the Secretary of State to prescribe the circumstances that constitute a breach of a requirement to participate in community activities. Again, as I said, that was discussed in another place and correspondence passed between Baroness Scotland and myself in which we set out the procedure we envisage before support is withdrawn.
	We do not consider that the amendment is necessary. The new clause already allows the Secretary of State to set out in regulations the circumstances in which failure to comply with a condition of support under section 4 would lead to termination of support, which clearly passed the hon. Member for Woking by when he compiled his remarks. We have spelled out how we envisage the process working before support is withdrawn.
	It is important to stress that we are not looking for ways to make people destitute. If we believe it appropriate, a failed asylum seeker will be issued with a warning and reminded of the requirement to perform community activities as a condition of receiving support and reminded of the consequences of failing to do so. Failure to participate again after the warning will lead to termination of support unless, of course, there is a reasonable excuse for not participating again. We will clearly need to consider all the circumstances of individual cases, but I hope that it is clear that we are not looking to terminate support automatically without first assessing the reasons for a failure to comply.
	I should emphasise again that people who are unable to participate in community activity will not be required to do so. It follows, therefore, that if a person's circumstances change, or if he is unwell, we would review whether he should be expected to continue the activity. We would not terminate support without first having examined fully the reasons for a person's failing to comply with the conditions. These basic principles will be provided for in greater detail in the regulations made under amended section 4, specifically under the regulation-making power contained in new subsection (5).
	The new clause also provides for a new right of appeal to the asylum support adjudicator against a decision by the Secretary of State to terminate support and against a decision by the Secretary of State not to provide support in the first place. That is an important safeguard, making our overall approach to support under section 4 more robust.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) asked why we do not just let these people work. There is a clear answer to that. It is imperative that we maintain the distinction between immigration and asylum. People who want to come and work in the UK can do so provided that they qualify for entry under one of the managed migration routes designed for that purpose. It is simply wrong to blur the boundaries between immigration and asylum. It risks confusing in the public eye two utterly distinct policies with completely different aims. The very people who argue that we should do that for this purpose also argue that the tabloid press should not be allowed to do it for their purposes.
	Confusing the two policies is unfair to genuine economic migrants, who have to satisfy strict conditions and have no recourse to the support that is offered to asylum seekers. It encourages people who are, in fact, economic migrants to enter unfounded asylum claims, knowing that they will be able to combine such a claim with continuing to work as long as they remain in the country. That would clog up the asylum system to the detriment of genuine refugees, placing an unfair burden on the taxpayer and undermining social cohesion. The Government will do nothing that has that consequence.
	Those urging a different approach might also want to consider the practicalities. By definition, members of the group will return to their own countries. It is not obvious that it is helpful to them or to potential employers for them to be encouraged to find paid employment.
	I want to add a brief word on the rest of the new clause and, in particular, on amendment (c), which would remove new subsection (6)(b). The subsection enables the Secretary of State to provide for the continuation of the provision of accommodation to be subject to conditions other than the requirement to perform community activities, which is referred to in new subsection (6)(a). The intention is that the Secretary of State sets out in regulations the existing criteria, which I referred to earlier, under which section 4 support is provided.
	It is right to place the existing conditions for section 4 support on a statutory basis. At the moment, to qualify for, and continue to qualify for, support under section 4, individuals must have been supported by the National Asylum Support Service or a local authority, have exhausted their rights of appeal, be destitute and have no other avenue of support. They must then have fulfilled one of the five eligibility criteria, which are that the failed asylum seeker must have been given permission to proceed with a judicial review of the decision to refuse asylum, must have been unable to leave because no viable route of return is available, must have been complying with arrangements to obtain a travel document, or must have been unable to leave the UK because of illness or late pregnancy; or there must otherwise have been wholly exceptional or compassionate circumstances. The conditions will be spelled out in the regulations themselves, which, as I have explained, will have been the product of consultation and made subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. We cannot agree, therefore, that amendment (c) is necessary.
	In summary, people in receipt of support under section 4 have no right to remain in the UK. We support them while arrangements are made for their return or if it is not possible for them to return home because of circumstances generally outside their control. However, we and they must recognise that there is a cost to the taxpayer for providing that support. Those failed asylum seekers who can participate in community activities need to recognise that they should contribute to the cost by giving something in return while they are waiting to return home.
	I was asked whether other countries do the same thing. Some require asylum seekers to get involved in activities in, for example, reception centres, so the requirement is not unusual. The Government view it as a fair and reasonable requirement, an important reinforcement to the clarity and fairness of the overall asylum system, and an important part of our overall approach to social cohesion.
	People rightly want reassurance that asylum is being managed properly. The measures in the Bill, building on our success in reducing the number of asylum applications by more than 60 per cent. over the past 18 months, are all helping to achieve that. Requiring people whose asylum claims have failed to give something back to society while it is supporting them is an important and not unreasonable part of this overall strategy.

Mark Oaten: The new clause and amendments to it involve some principles. The Minister has done a pretty convincing job in laying out the Government's view that as we live in a culture in which people do not get something unless they give something back in return, the new clause is needed to ensure that the public see that the individuals concerned are working for the benefit that they receive. That is an important principle. It breaks into slightly new ground, in that if the Government establish that concept for a range of groups, they are going in a clear direction, and they have been up front and open about that.
	In considering the Government's reasons and arguments in relation to the questions raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, it is interesting to note that they address few of the issues on possible breaches of human rights, but talk an awful lot—the Minister has said this endlessly—about the essential need of having the provision in place for social cohesion, so that the public have confidence in the immigration and asylum system. My nervousness is this: why the public need to have that confidence—why the Minister is worried about the breakdown in social cohesion—is a result of some of the tabloid nonsense that we have seen over the past two or three years.The danger is that the Minister could be open to the accusation that by introducing the measure, the Government are pandering to that rather than taking it on directly in a way that I would like to see them do more often.
	I understand entirely the Minister's arguments, but in a less reasonable manner—perhaps outside the Chamber—I can hear individuals saying, "Yeah, that's right, and we're going to tell these people they've got to go out and work, rather than getting their benefits." It is that kind of debate and dialogue that I am uneasy about, although on other occasions I have wanted the Government take on some of the nonsense that is talked about in the tabloid press.

Des Browne: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his words and for his challenge to me and the Government to explain our policy on immigration and asylum in greater detail than we have done so far since the publication of the White Paper. I would be grateful for his support on that, but we cannot wait to do the right thing on the structure for asylum support until we have changed the minds of certain tabloid newspapers. It is not possible for us to do that.

Mark Oaten: That is a fascinating response, and we are probably straying way beyond the amendment. It is almost a chicken and egg argument. If the Minister is saying that by putting the measures in place, which I could describe as slightly draconian, he can neutralise the tabloid press and ultimately turn public support around, then I understand his point. It is right that I put on record concern about the danger of going down that route. The Government might feel that they must respond to every new outrage, and we could end up with a set of measures pandering to that.
	I ask the Minister for more detail on some of the measures suggested. The proposed scheme has been sprung on us at the last minute, and the Minister has not been able to answer all the points put to him, particularly by the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins). A number of issues spring to mind. We are not yet clear about the kind of work that will be involved. It is important that we understand what projects are to take place.
	I am also not clear about how the scheme will work day to day. I would be concerned if there were any plans, for example, to link the proposed scheme with the work of the probation service, resulting in those who are part of the scheme working alongside people whose work on community projects is part of their punishment. The Minister has said that he would not wish the scheme to be seen as a punishment, but he has not ruled out its being managed day to day by the probation service, so it is open to such misinterpretation, especially if those working on the projects are doing so for different reasons. If he could rule that possibility out now, it would be enormously helpful.

Des Browne: The activities will not be administered—even indirectly—as part of the criminal justice system. That was never anybody's intention; nobody has ever suggested that. To put up suspicions in order to knock them down does not help to achieve the objective that the hon. Gentleman says he wants to achieve, which is some dialogue that allows us seriously to move forward on these issues.

Mark Oaten: The Minister will forgive me for pointing out that, actually, nobody has suggested anything, which is why it is a problem trying to clarify who is to manage the scheme. It is not unreasonable or ridiculous to suggest that the probation service might manage it. I am grateful that the Minister has ruled that out, although it would be much more helpful if he told us who will be managing the scheme, so that we do not have to come up with all sorts of suggestions that he describes as silly. In a vacuum, such concerns will be aired.
	We need to know more about how a judgment will be made on whether the work done is satisfactory. Who will decide that? What consultation will there be with the individuals who are doing the work? We still have not had answers to questions about the amount of work that will be required each week in return for the benefit and support.
	I want to probe the Minister a little more on penalties. I want to be clear that he is saying that there will be a right of appeal against a penalty for refusing to do the work. The Joint Committee on Human Rights raised concerns about whether the proposal would breach article 4 of the European convention on human rights. I understand the Minister's suggestion that, given that the proposal is a community scheme, it would be hard to breach article 4, but the Government could be open to some challenge if penalties for failure to do such work were imposed.
	There are practical, day-to-day problems that the Government need to address, such as the cost to the individual of going to work. Will that be covered under the scheme, or will it be subtracted from any benefit or support that the individual receives?
	There are question marks over the proposed scheme not only about its practical, day-to-day nature, but about the route down which the Government are going by establishing the principle that one does not receive support unless one works. I have long advocated that there should be some chance for these folk to work, but the Minister has ruled that out and given his reasons. In considering the most dignified ways in which such individuals can give something back to the community, I much prefer a route that allows them to choose and to take part in meaningful work for a salary, rather than a Government-managed scheme for which we have few details that might imply that there is some punishment for the benefit provided.

Jeremy Corbyn: I was pleased that the Minister gave an assurance that there would be consultation on any regulations that might be introduced before the system was introduced. I hope that will be meaningful and serious consultation. I asked him in an intervention about the ILO definition. I would be grateful if he reflected on that and seriously considered consulting that organisation.
	The proposed scheme involves an important principle. People who are unable to return to the country from which they came, for fairly obvious reasons of safety and security, are to be required to make some contribution to the community here for which they will not be paid in cash, although they will receive some benefits in kind such as somewhere to live. That is not a particularly good principle because people might end up doing such work for quite a long time. One thinks of the situation in Iran, Congo, Somalia, China and other places, to which there are either no returns or a very limited number. Some individuals might be at serious risk if they were returned, so they might end up doing the Government-managed work for many years, which is not sensible.
	As I said in an intervention and as the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) has said, perhaps it would be better if people contributed by working in a more normal environment, for which they were paid and would therefore pay national insurance and tax. Such a payment scheme could operate on a limited basis—for six months or a year—but at least those people would be working normally and contributing to society.
	I suspect that contributions to the community in the form proposed will end up being expensive to administer. I can envisage 500 people around the country doing a bit of painting and decorating, or clearing ponds and ditches, each supervised by one person. We could end up with some incredible bureaucratic cost in order to achieve something that probably would not even succeed in satisfying the editorial writers of the Daily Mail, thereby defeating the whole purpose. Perhaps we should try something a little different.
	I also intervened on a serious point that I want the Minister to think about. Because of fear of return, a number of people simply disappear and end up being exploited in our society through drugs, prostitution, illegal work and all the rest of it, which is very damaging to them and everybody else. Given the labour shortage in London and the south-east, it is very easy to get illegal work and to be grossly exploited as a result. We are not dealing with that issue. Those who agree that at some point they will return to their country of origin will be given somewhere to live by the Home Office and may contribute through informal work, but nothing beyond that. On the other hand, those who are not prepared to agree to that will disappear into the system, work illegally and will often be exploited as a result. Would it not be better to say that it is not safe to return to country X at the moment, and to review that in a set period? We would then know where people were, and there would be less illegal working and less exploitation.
	I am not convinced that the Minister's proposals, which were introduced in the Lords, are workable. I hope that the consultation will be serious, and that if the Minister finds that there is hardly any or no support for the idea beyond the rhetoric that prompted it in the first place, he will not proceed to regulate and the proposal will not go ahead.

Humfrey Malins: I have listened very carefully to what the Minister and others have said during this short debate and I say straight away that I am disappointed. I am disappointed that at no stage the Minister said sorry to this House on behalf of the Government—sorry for the fact that they have introduced this major clause and others so late in the day; sorry that they did not give the Standing Committee any chance to debate the clause; sorry that they did not give this House the chance to debate it on Report; and sorry that they introduced it so late in the other place that they provoked one of their own Ministers to say:
	"The Government's treatment of the Committee could be bordering on contempt".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 July 2004; Vol. 663, c. 273.]
	I ask whether in anyone's memory any Minister has stood up in the other place and, when making an abject apology for his own Government, described their treatment of a Committee as "bordering on contempt". That is astonishing, but typical of the present Government. I am disappointed that the Government have, as always, tabled major clauses at the last moment and pushed them through this House without proper scrutiny, but perhaps by now I should have learned to expect that.
	Yes, of course the Minister is right to say that we should all appreciate the benefits of social cohesion. We do. He is right to say that the benefits of social cohesion are not easily quantifiable. However, his explanation regarding the Joint Committee on Human Rights was not satisfactory, and he has dealt with very few of my queries. He has not said what type of work people will have to do, what training they will get for it, whether they will have some form of transport to it, or what will happen if they do not do the work well. He has not even touched on the question of cost. I did a lot of work looking into community service and the costs thereof, but we have not been told what the cost per person of the Government's proposed scheme will be, or even the cost of the project as a whole. That is partly because the Government have acted in such a rush that they simply do not know.
	Having expressed my disappointment with the Government's response, let me say that I still feel strongly about amendment (e). If it is appropriate for me to do so, I wish to test the opinion of the House and press that amendment to a vote.

Madam Deputy Speaker: We are dealing with amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 15. Does the hon. Gentleman wish to withdraw that amendment?

Humfrey Malins: Yes, provided that we can vote on amendment (e), I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Amendment proposed to Lords amendment No. 15: (e), in line 32, at end insert—
	'(ia)   prescribe the circumstances which constitute a breach of a requirement to participate in community activities;'.—[Mr. Malins.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—
	The House divided: Ayes 130, Noes 240.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Lords amendment agreed to.

Nicholas Winterton: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I seek your advice and help. Will you ascertain whether the Division bells within the Palace of Westminster continue to ring as they have in the past? I have just been to the summer reception of the Motorsport Industry Association in the Cholmondeley Room of the House of Lords. I was well within the precincts of the House of Commons, let alone the Palace of Westminster. I was asked by a friendly Labour Member of this place whether it was my intention to vote. I asked him, "Is there a Division taking place?" He replied, "Yes. If you run, you might just make it." It could be my age but I heard no Division bell. Are the bells still operating? If they are not, would you please ensure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that they start again to operate to notify Members that Divisions are taking place?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sure that the House is grateful for the account of the hon. Gentleman's evening. It is regrettable that it had to come to a premature conclusion. I am not aware that the Division bells of the House of Commons ring as they do in this place in the other place. It is usually signified on the Monitors if a Division is taking place in this House. The hon. Gentleman has great experience of these matters and of the House in general. When the House is expecting votes that could occur at any time, one has to have extra vigilance in the conduct of one's other activities outside the Chamber.

Nicholas Winterton: May I just come back, Mr. Deputy Speaker?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is taking the valuable time of the House.

Nicholas Winterton: I accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	I sought to make it clear in my opening remarks that when I was addressed by the Labour Member I was well within the House of Commons as against being within the House of Lords. I believe that this is not the first time that Members have had problems in hearing Division bells within the House of Commons.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The bells ring for two minutes, not for the whole of the eight minutes. I think that the hon. Gentleman should know that. By the time that he came back within the curtilage of the House of Commons, I dare say that we had reached the point when the bells no longer rang. I will ensure that what he has said is brought to the attention of the authorities, to ensure that all bells that should be ringing are ringing.

Peter Bottomley: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In olden days a knight would have a page. Nowadays it might be that a pager would solve the problem.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is something that the hon. Gentleman might discuss with the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) at a later stage. Perhaps suitable arrangements could be made.
	Lords amendment: No. 30

Des Browne: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may discuss Lords amendment No. 31.

Des Browne: Lords amendment No. 31 simply clarifies how further applications are dealt with under our one-stop powers once an earlier application has already been determined. The amendment and the change to the immigration rules that will go with it will make it easier for caseworkers to deal consistently with these cases and easier for applicants and their lawyers to understand precisely what is being done. I do not believe that the amendment is controversial; it certainly was not in another place.
	I shall concentrate my remarks on Lords amendment No. 30, which provides a power to remove the right of appeal against certain entry clearance decisions. The Secretary of State will be able to specify grounds of refusal that relate to requirements under immigration rules. Where an entry clearance application is refused because a specified ground is not met, there will be no right of appeal. We intend to use this power only in respect of provisions in the immigration rules, which are based on objective criteria. It makes little sense for an applicant to appeal in these circumstances. The decision that an applicant fails to meet such a requirement is a question of fact. Appeals in such circumstances would be fruitless and wasteful.
	The amendment extends the scope of section 88 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Section 88 already prevents an appeal in cases in which a requirement in respect of age, nationality, documentation or the period for which leave is sought is not met, or in which the purpose of entry or stay is not covered by the immigration rules. The amendment will not affect existing rights of appeal in respect of race discrimination and human rights issues. Those residual appeal rights are preserved by the construction of section 88, which is mirrored in proposed new section 88A(2)(a), as set out in the amendment.
	The provision will support the steps that we are taking to tackle areas of abuse in entry clearance cases. Where it is necessary to amend the immigration rules to create additional objective criteria, the power could be used to preclude a right of appeal against refusals based on a failure to meet that new requirement. Thus, a development of the immigration rules need not result in new meritless appeals. Such appeals impact adversely on the swift resolution of other arguable appeals. Without the power, we would have to use new primary legislation to remove the right of appeal each time a rules change created an objective criterion for refusal.
	I understand the concern about the operation of the order-making power. I assure the House that it will be applied only to provisions of the immigration rules that are based on objective criteria—that is to say, provisions about which there can be little debate as to whether the necessary requirements have been met. Furthermore, the amendment provides that the order-making power is subject to affirmative procedures, so any use of the power will be subject to debate in both Houses.
	It is appropriate for me to give some helpful examples as to how the power might be used. As is known, the Government are creating a register of bona fide colleges. If such a register were put in place, we would make it a specified requirement for entry clearance as a student that the applicant is enrolled at a registered college. As enrolment at a non-registered college is a clear matter of fact leaving no issue to be argued on appeal, it would make no sense for a right of appeal to exist, so this circumstance would be a candidate for designation under the provision.
	Similarly, we are in the process of implementing proposals for a new scheme specifically for science and engineering graduates, which was announced last year, and a scheme for MBA—master of business administration—graduates that was announced in this year's Budget. Those also might be considered for designation under the provision. Under such schemes, leave to enter would be contingent on specific qualifications from specific institutions. Again, that would not be open to argument and a right of appeal would be unnecessary.
	An example of where the power could be used in relation to an existing provision of the immigration rules is in respect of paragraph 246, which deals with
	"the requirements to be met by a person seeking leave to enter the United Kingdom to exercise access rights to a child resident in the United Kingdom".
	It is necessary for an applicant to produce evidence that he has access rights to the child in the form of a residence order or a contact order granted by a court in the United Kingdom or a certificate issued by a district judge confirming his intention to maintain contact with the child. Without one of those documents, the appeal cannot succeed. Whether an applicant had produced the required evidence would not be open to argument, so an appeal would be unnecessary.
	I shall quickly go through some examples of further such provisions, as they might help the rest of the debate. Paragraph 87A(i) deals with the requirement that the applicant has been elected to a full-time salaried post as a sabbatical officer at an educational establishment at which he is registered as a student. Paragraph 110(i) states that a teaching or language exchange must be approved by the education departments or administered by the Central Bureau for Educational Visits and Exchanges or the League for the Exchange of Commonwealth Teachers. Finally, paragraph 178(i) deals with when an applicant had been transferred to the UK by an overseas-owned airline operating services to and from the UK to take up duty at an international airport as a station manager, security manager or technical manager.
	Those examples show that the immigration rules already contain provisions about which there can be little room for debate, as whether they are met is a matter of objective fact. There is no evidence of abuse in any of those categories at this time, and we do not intend to specify the requirements at present, but they are good examples in relation to which the power would be useful if abuse or problems arose.
	I commend the Lords amendments to the House.

Humfrey Malins: I shall be brief, but I wish to make one or two general observations.It has been acknowledged by the Government and in another place that, in so far as the measure deals with students and bogus colleges, it is worth pointing out that international students provide enormous value to this country. That is the case in terms of the economic, political and diplomatic advantages of the many hundreds of thousands of international students who come to this country for further or higher education. In the other place, my noble Friend Baroness Anelay rightly said that overseas students contribute billions of pounds to our economy, and it is important that we encourage them strongly.
	The Minister envisages that the new clause set out in the amendment, in so far as it relates to students, may address two problems: students who enrol at a bogus college and those who enrol at a college that does not maintain proper attendance checks. I wonder whether he has had any correspondence about this matter. I certainly recall receiving correspondence from one or two people around the country who were concerned about students who enrolled at a college and never turned up. I hope that there will be practical measures to ensure that the issue is dealt with.
	We welcome the Minister's statement that there will be a register of bona fide colleges, which is a good step forward. There have been abuses with students from abroad coming to this country, but I am sure that he will be the first to acknowledge the vital contribution made by so many international students to life in this country.

Neil Gerrard: I shall try to be brief. I understand the points that the Minister made about cases in which there are objective and clear facts that are covered in the immigration rules. With regard to his point about bogus students and colleges, I am pleased that there is to be a register of colleges and courses. In addition to cases in which people have used such things as a means of evading immigration controls, I have also seen significant numbers of cases in which people have been enrolled on courses that were totally worthless and paid large amounts of money for them, but were ripped off by fake colleges. I am glad that we will have some controls in those parts of the system.
	My concerns about the amendment relate not so much to what the Minister said in introducing it as to what the proposed new clause says. Although he said that it would turn on an objective fact, I do not see where that is set out in the clause, which talks about a decision to refuse being
	"taken on grounds which . . . relate to a provision of immigration rules, and . . . are specified for the purpose of this section by order of the Secretary of State."
	The Minister has obviously indicated the sort of cases that he might intend to specify, but the phrase
	"relate to a provision of the immigration rules"
	seems extremely wide. I do not think that it could be argued that a clear, objective test could be applied to every provision in the immigration rules. Unless my memory serves me wrongly, I believe that those rules contain provisions on marriage applications, for example. We expect someone who is applying for entry clearance on the basis of marriage to satisfy an entry clearance officer that they are married, that the person in the UK has means to support them without recourse to public funds and that accommodation is available for them. Those issues are often subject to argument in appeals and it is not possible to apply a simple, objective test to such provisions in the immigration rules. I would prefer the proposed new section to spell out the cases to which the power would be applied, rather than leaving it to regulation.
	I draw attention to a point made by the independent monitor for entry clearance in her recent report, which suggested that significant numbers of applicants were wrongly denied the right to appeal in 2002. The independent entry clearance monitor examines cases in which a right of appeal does not exist and she said that applicants were wrongly denied that right in significant numbers of cases. In other words, things often go wrong under provisions that do not provide a right of appeal.
	I am concerned about the proposed new section's breadth and what it might open up. I accept the Minister's point that he intends to use the power to introduce regulations dealing purely with objective facts. Unfortunately, the proposed new section's drafting leaves it open for a future Minister of whatever Government to use the proposed new section in a totally different way, rather than simply dealing with the straightforward cases that my hon. Friend the Minister discussed in introducing the debate. Although I trust him, I do not necessarily trust a future Minister, who might represent a different party, to apply the proposed new section.
	I have some concerns about the drafting of the proposed new section. I accept that the positive procedure will be used and that the matter will be debated in the House, which is certainly preferable to the negative procedure. If a regulation is based on the proposed new section, I hope that a warning will be given and that a consultation will occur. That will allow hon. Members to know precisely what is proposed in advance, rather than debating the regulation at short notice without being able to assess its impact. Although I accept the Minister's remarks on colleges, I am concerned about how the power might be used in future.

David Heath: I agree with many of the cautious remarks made by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard). I suspect that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with most of what the Minister said in introducing the proposed new section. The difficulty is that it is framed in such a way as to be capable of wider interpretation, which may not be as benign as the Minister suggests.
	When the Government identify an abuse of process, they have a regrettable tendency, which sadly we have seen before in the course of this Bill, to abolish the process rather than the abuse, which is a shame. For instance, I understand that the register of colleges will bear down on a specific area of abuse. I welcome that sensible provision, although given the requirement for an appeal to have merit, it throws into question who would bring an appeal against a refusal on the ground of non-inclusion in a register, when the position would appear to be transparent and not capable of a great deal of learned discussion, even by the most highly paid legal authorities.
	Although the Minister helpfully stated that only readily ascertainable, objective tests can be used, practitioners in the field outside this place will suspect that at some unspecified stage—it would probably not involve this Minister, this Department or this Government—the proposed new section could be used to introduce a subjective test by statutory instrument that would be incapable of resolution through the appeal process. However, I do not want to overstate that concern.
	The examples and the assurance on objectivity provided by the Minister are helpful, but the nagging suspicion remains that the proposed new section is framed in terms that are too wide for the purpose and that could have been more narrowly drawn to great advantage.

Des Browne: I shall be brief. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) categorised the Government's behaviour as identifying an abuse and abolishing the process. The proposed new section enables us to identify an abuse and amend the process to interdict the abuse. To that extent, I am sure that he thinks that we are doing the right thing. I am grateful to hon. Members for their contributions to the debate and for their qualified support. I am also grateful to them for accepting my intentions as a Minister and the intentions of the Government and the Home Office.
	On further specification in the proposed new section, drafting challenges that cannot be overcome mean that we cannot define what constitutes an objective criterion. Consequently, the Government have given assurances on how the power will be used and are committed to abiding by them. In trying to interdict abuse, we cannot be constrained by what other Governments more meanly disposed to this area of public policy might do. The fact that any order made under the provision will be subject to affirmative resolution procedure should address any concerns about the scope of the power. No other points that require a response were raised in the debate, and I am content to rest my arguments at this point.
	Lords amendment agreed to.
	Lords amendment No. 31 agreed to.
	Lords amendment: No. 17.

Des Browne: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may discuss the following: Lords amendment No. 18 and amendments (a) to (e) thereto, and Lords amendments Nos. 14 and 16.

Des Browne: Lords amendments Nos. 14 and 16 were not contentious in the other place and I do not anticipate contention here. I therefore intend to speak about them briefly and to concentrate on Lords amendments Nos. 17 and 18, to which the Opposition have tabled amendments.
	Lords amendment No. 14 would make the section 8 offence, which is the main statutory control on illegal working, triable on indictment as well as summarily. That would mean that, in the more serious cases, the Immigration Advisory Service could pursue a prosecution in the Crown court, where there is no limit to the fine that can be imposed following conviction on indictment. The Government believe that it is essential to take action against unscrupulous employers who profit from the exploitation of illegal workers and are sometimes found to have links with organised crime. That is why we want to send a powerful message of deterrence by increasing the fines that the courts may impose in the most serious cases.

Humfrey Malins: I was interested by the change in penalty. I may be wrong, but I do not believe that a custodial sentence is available to the courts in relation to an offence under section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996. I do not expect the Minister to answer that now but if I am right, I am a little sorry. Perhaps I should not be sorry, but I believe that I should be.

Des Browne: I am not sure whether I can help the hon. Gentleman out of the dilemma that he has expressed. However, the penalties that follow contravention of section 8 are financial and were put in place before the Government came to power.
	The dispersal of asylum seekers is an important policy and, among other things, helps to reduce pressures on social housing and local government services in areas where they are already stretched, especially in London and other areas of the south-east. Lords amendment No. 16 ensures that, for the purposes of homelessness legislation in England and Wales, asylum seekers should automatically establish a local connection with an area when they are dispersed there by the Home Office and provided with accommodation under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. That is to ensure that the local housing authority in the dispersal area has the responsibility of securing accommodation for them, should they subsequently be granted leave to remain and apply for homelessness assistance.
	Lords amendment No. 17 would abolish back payments of income support and related benefits to refugees. Since the creation of the National Asylum Support Service in April 2000, asylum seekers who are granted refugee status have been able to apply for a back payment of income support equal to the 30 per cent. differential between the cash element of asylum support and income support that is backdated to when they made their claim for asylum.
	Given that those who receive asylum support also get other benefits in kind, such as payment of utility bills and household items, the Government believe that the back payment is no longer necessary. The amendment would therefore repeal section 123 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The relevant supporting regulations will also cease to have effect on the repeal of the section. For the sake of clarity and certainty, we are taking the opportunity to revoke those regulations expressly in the legislation.

Mark Oaten: Does the Minister have any concerns that, during the relevant period, individuals may have taken out loans and had to borrow money, and that the back payment was often a way of settling some of those loans? Is the Minister worried that, by removing the provision, individuals may not be able to pay back some of the help and support that they received in that difficult period?

Des Browne: Given the complexity of the legislation on the claims, asylum seekers would be ill advised to operate on the certainty of a grant of refugee status and guaranteed back payments. There were no guaranteed back payments for all asylum seekers who attained refugee status and I am not prepared to determine the policy on back payments and loans for the future, which would be the corollary of removing the back payment provisions on the basis of speculation that people may be granted refugee status and get some windfall in the form of back payment of benefit. I do not accept that people conduct their affairs on that basis. If they do, they would be well advised not to do so. Nobody should give them such advice, not even implicitly.

Neil Gerrard: What is my hon. Friend's estimate of the savings from the change in the amount of money that will not be paid out in back payments, the amount that will be paid out in loans and the cost of administering a loans system, which will presumably have to be set up from scratch?

Des Browne: I have not got the figures to give my hon. Friend off the top of my head but I shall provide them later. However, the savings on back payments will be used to fund the loans system. That is appropriate and I shall discuss the reasons for that. Depending on the depth into which we can go in the debate, I hope that I can convince my hon. Friend and other hon. Members of the correctness of that argument. Perhaps by the time I deal with those issues, I can give my hon. Friend more specific information.
	The amendment also deals with an earlier back payments scheme under section 11(2) of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996, and seeks to revoke the regulations that preserve it for transitional purposes. Although the vast majority of claims for back payments of income support are made under the 1999 Act, we want to make sure that the policy is applied consistently. Our policy is that back payments will cease for all those recorded as refugees after the clause comes into effect, irrespective of when they made their claim for asylum.
	Lords amendment No. 18, which seeks to introduce integration loans for refugees, will be funded out of money saved by the abolition of the current back payments system. The new scheme will come into force only when the current scheme is ended. The Government want to move away from the current system under which payments are made to all refugees, and which are calculated according to the amount of time spent waiting for an asylum decision. With the new system, the Government will be able to target loans at those refugees who are most in need of help to establish themselves in a new life in the United Kingdom, and, ultimately, to facilitate their successful integration into society.
	In providing a loan, the Government seek to ensure that refugees can quickly establish themselves in the United Kingdom and to enable them to fulfil their potential and to contribute to both society and the economy. By recovering money loaned, the system has the potential to become a powerful tool in facilitating refugee integration, not only for refugees today but for those who will need our help in the future. The Government are committed to administering the loan system in the most cost-effective way possible and are conducting detailed work across Departments to establish how the loan might best be delivered.
	At this stage, it seems likely that the money disbursed by the Secretary of State will be recovered via mechanisms already established by the Department for Work and Pensions for collecting money owed either to that Department or to a third party. As to the extent of the existing financial provisions, I am told that about £11 million was spent in 2002, but we do not yet have the detailed figures for 2003. As I said, the money saved will be used for the integration loan.
	I commend the Lords amendments to the House.

Humfrey Malins: Lords amendments Nos. 17 and 18 are linked, and the Opposition do not object in principle to the change in procedure introduced by the Government, of taking away the backdating of benefits position and replacing it with a discretionary loan system. We hope that it will work well.
	My colleagues and I have tabled several amendments to Lords amendment No. 18, the first of which changes "may" to "shall"—Oppositions tend to change "may" to "shall"—on the basis that, in this case, we ought to impose on the Government some duty to make regulations.
	My second amendment is designed for one thing only: to seek to persuade the Government that in an ideal world, in which we do not live, all decisions about refugee status should be decided in a very short period—six weeks. I still believe that the Government have a great deal of work to do to ensure that initial decisions on asylum applications are made quicker and more efficiently.
	My third amendment concerns interest. It is designed to draw from the Government further comment about the interest rates that might be applied to discretionary loans of this sort.
	My fourth important amendment would strike out that part of Lords amendment No. 18 that says that the regulations
	"may confer a discretion on the Secretary of State."
	Never in my whole—if not distinguished, then lengthy—career in the House have I seen a clause that simply gives the Secretary of State discretion to do whatever he or she wants. What sort of discretion might we be giving to the Secretary of State in relation to those loans?
	How will refugees be able to apply for a loan, and to whom? How much money will be saved by the first of the two provisions—the Minister has half answered that—enabling the loan system to be set up? How much will go into the loan system? Lord Rooker said in the other place that the Government were having discussions with the Department for Work and Pensions. I should be grateful if the Minister could bring us up to date.
	These are probing amendments, drawn up in the short time available to us. I know that the Minister is embarrassed about that: he is an honourable man, and he would have wanted us to have much more time in which to discuss these matters. He may, however, be able to give me an inkling of his response in due course.

Neil Gerrard: Lords amendment No. 17 is, in my view, extremely mean and miserable. Removing the requirement for people to pay at the point at which they are given refugee status—given the costs to the national budget about which we have just heard—will hardly break the Chancellor's bank. I suspect that the loan scheme will result in no great savings and will be messy to administer. Moreover, I do not know how some of the regulations will work. Clause 18 suggests that the regulations
	"may make provision about steps to be taken by the Secretary of State in establishing an applicant's likely ability to repay a loan".
	The applicant may have been in National Asylum Support Service accommodation for several months. He or she may have just been granted refugee status, and may not have been given permission to work. How on earth can such an assessment be made? It is beyond me.
	I have encountered a number of cases in which people have been in financial difficulties when they have been granted refugee status, because they have been living on 70 per cent. of the rate of income support. They have not been able to manage on that. They have had to borrow money, formally or informally—often informally, from friends and relatives who have kept them afloat. Receiving money on obtaining refugee status has enabled them to survive and repay some of the debts that have accumulated—rent arrears, for example—and to make a fresh start. I really do think that this is a miserable, mean-minded change.
	As for Lords amendment No. 16, I understand the arguments about local connections. The intention is to reverse the effect of a court decision made a few months ago. I do not think, however, that people will remain in the areas to which they have been dispersed. People who have been moved out of London will return because they have friends and relatives there, and they will not be able to secure social housing. Some pressure may be removed from individual local authority housing departments that will not be rehousing such people on the grounds that they are homeless, but housing pressures in general will not be dealt with. Those people will be back in London staying with family or friends, or struggling to find private rented accommodation.

Des Browne: Amendment (a) seeks to make it mandatory for the Secretary of State to make regulations enabling him to make loans to refugees. As Lord Rooker said in another place, the Government are committed to ensuring that there is a seamless transition between the ending of back-payments and the introduction of a refugee integration loan. I repeat that commitment; indeed, I have already done so. There will be no gap between the ending of back-payments and the introduction of a refugee integration loan.
	I hope that that commitment is sufficient to reassure the House that there is no need to oblige the Secretary of State to make regulations enabling the making of loans to refugees. He has every intention of introducing the scheme as soon as the necessary practical arrangements have been made.
	Amendment (b) seeks to make Lords amendment No. 18 read:
	"A person is a refugee for the purpose of subsection (1) if the Secretary of State has within six weeks of his application . . . recorded him as a refugee".
	One aspect of the proposal that I welcome is the implicit recognition of the major improvements that we have secured in reducing decision-making times. In 1997, the suggestion that all decisions must be taken within six weeks would have been so far divorced from reality as to have been laughable. By 2002, however, that figure, including decisions on backlog cases, was provisionally down to six months.
	We fully recognise the importance of quick decision making; it is good administrative practice and good news for asylum seekers, who will have less time to worry about the outcome of their claim. The importance that we attach to that is reflected in the published targets that we have set ourselves. For the previous financial year, there was a target to decide 75 per cent. of new asylum applications within two months—a target that we are provisionally on course to beat. Indeed, we have recently decided about 80 per cent. of new cases within two months. In addition, we have made massive inroads into the backlog.
	We have no difficulty in being open to public scrutiny of our ability to turn cases round quickly, and we will continue to take steps to improve our current performance. Having said that, I see no merit in a rigid requirement in primary legislation stipulating that a decision must be taken within a specified time, whatever that period may be. In the majority of cases, it is possible to decide claims quickly and fairly. However, there will always be some cases that cannot be decided quickly if they are also to be decided fairly. Under the constraints imposed by subsection (1), we would be forced to take decisions without having the necessary facts at our disposal. I do not consider that an acceptable outcome.
	Amendment (c) to amendment No. 18 seeks to remove the Secretary of State's power to make regulations that enable him to charge interest on an integration loan. It is the Government's current intention that this loan to refugees should be interest-free. Should a decision be taken to charge interest on the loan in future, I would expect comparisons to be drawn with other loan schemes in operation across government, such as the student loan system. I reassure the House that any future interest rate would be dealt with in regulations, subject to the affirmative procedure.
	Taken together, amendments (d) and (e) seek to remove the power for regulations to confer discretion on the Secretary of State. The intention behind Lords amendment No. 18 is to enable the Secretary of State to ensure that in all cases a loan is made to a deserving case. We do not believe that such discretion would allow the Secretary of State to ignore all other provisions in the amendment, or to act in an unreasonable way. For those reasons—
	It being after three and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings, Mr. Deputy Speaker proceeded to put the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that hour, pursuant to Order [this day].
	Lords amendment No. 17 agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 18, 14 and 16 agreed to.
	Lords amendment: No. 21.

Humfrey Malins: I beg to move amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 21.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment (c) thereto; Lords amendments Nos. 22 to 27; Lords amendments Nos. 19, 20, 32, 40, 41, 33, 34; Lords amendments Nos. 1 to 13; Lords amendments Nos. 35 to 39; and Lords amendments Nos. 63 to 69.

Humfrey Malins: Lords amendment No. 21 and the new clause on marriage could, so far as I can see, be re-titled "Procedure for marriage: the need to ask the Home Secretary personally for permission in each case, save where it is in a Church of England church". It is a most interesting provision.
	The proposed new clause is important, following as it does much discussion in the past few months about so-called bogus and sham marriages. On 22 June 2004, I asked the Minister a written question about the number of alleged sham marriages reported to his Department by marriage registrars, and in how many such cases enforcement action was taken by his Department. The answer was surprising and rather troubling. In 2001 there were 756 notifications from 126 registrar districts; in 2002, there were 1,205 notifications; and in 2003 there were 2,712 notifications. Indeed, I understand that in 2004, there have been some 2,500 notifications of alleged sham marriages to date. In every case of a sham marriage there are likely to be two persons behaving fraudulently, so it seems that an awful lot of people are getting involved in some form of criminal activity at our registry offices—possibly up to 10,000, on these figures alone, in the past four years.
	I was surprised, then, to read that in the last financial year enforcement teams in London were responsible for the arrest of only 110 individuals, only 37 of whom were charged with criminal offences. One begins to think that the Government were far too slow in finding out about the problem and certainly in doing anything about it. Is that a reasonable view for me to hold? I had a long interview with a senior registrar, whose comments I shall set forth.
	The senior registrar—there are about 300 in the country—talked about the problems that he had faced in the past few years in relation to sham marriages. He said that it was virtually impossible to stop people getting married even if he was suspicious, and he went on to deal with section 24 reports—the reports that registrars are obliged to make to the Home Office when they suspect a marriage of being a sham. There is a prescribed form for submitting such reports. He told me that it was customary to send them in by email, letter or fax.
	Here is the rub. The registrar told me—I admit that this is anecdotal—that it was the experience of registrars throughout the country that although very many reports were sent in, there was "virtually no reaction" from the Home Office until a couple of months ago.

Mark Oaten: I am very interested in this anecdotal evidence. Did the hon. Gentleman ask the registrar how difficult it was for ordinary registrars to spot a problem? The Government are suggesting that we need special registrars to look into such cases. What did ordinary registrars think about their ability to identify such problems?

Humfrey Malins: It seemed to me that the senior registrar was saying that registrars throughout the country—all somewhat expert in these matters, because it is their job—had found certain couples to be absolutely suspicious. It beggars belief that a registrar should have to tell me that he had "virtually no reaction" from the Home Office whenever he submitted a report. He said that there was rarely, if ever, any feedback from the Home Office. There was no acknowledgement, and no one turned up from the Home Office. Because of that inaction, registrars have effectively been obliged to ask whether it is really worth submitting such reports. They press on as best they can, but they have been poorly served by the Home Office.
	Furthermore, interestingly—I do not know why this is the case—the registrar told me that the police are not remotely interested in this sort of thing and did not want to know. Registrars get very frustrated at Home Office inaction.
	These provisions require applicants to take certain steps. I see that the Minister is laughing. I hope that he is not laughing at the Home Office's performance over the past few years, and that he will agree that it really has been rather poor. I acknowledge that the provisions are a welcome step forward in trying to deal with this matter. There may have been problems in the past that they missed or did not do enough about, but they are trying hard to get to grips with the situation. I thank them for that.
	The clause has been slightly improved in the other place, and there is much in it that is good, but I want to make a few points. Amendment (a) would require that notice may be given only if each party to the marriage has been resident in a district for a period of 14 days, not seven. I see no reason why the provision should not be tougher. Seven days is acceptable, but what is wrong with 14?
	Amendment (c) deals with the need for the registrar to keep
	"a written record of applications refused which shall include reasons for refusal".
	I believe that the registrar could and should have that duty placed upon him or her.
	Although the Government's proposals represent a sensible approach to the matter, certain things must happen if they are to work properly. First, there must be an efficient means of sharing information on marriage applications between registrars, the Home Office and UK Visas. Secondly, the Home Office must, from now on, actively enforce the law.
	Under the proposals, all non-European economic area nationals wishing to marry will need to apply to the Home Office for a permission document, and registrars will be able to refuse to marry a person who cannot produce it. What information is that document likely to contain? I shall be helpful to the Government by saying that it should include the applicant's name and address, a photograph, a description of their immigration status, a statement of their marital status, and the name of the proposed spouse with similar information about her or him, including a photograph and a date of grant permission.
	Here is the rub. Can the Minister confirm that the document will contain several security features—for example, watermarks or holograms—and a unique serial number specific to the application? If the potential fraudster seeks to use his or her own identity with forged documents, there is a real prospect of their getting caught. However, what if he seeks to use someone else's identity? That would give him a much better chance of fooling the registrar. I hope that the Minister will spend a little time focusing on the permission document and on my idea that it should contain a unique—say a 10-figure—serial number. That would mean that there was a real chance that the applicant would have to be genuine to get through the process—past the Home Office and to the registrar—without being able to get away with fraud or the like.
	There are two other brief matters to mention in connection with this clause on marriage. The first is the report of the Joint Committee. I do not need to tell the Minister that the Joint Committee had something to say on the clause, and I hope that he deals with the matter in a way that satisfies the House.
	I come now to the second thing that I was going to say. One needs to learn a lesson in life. Whenever one says, "I've got three points to make," it is almost inevitable that one makes the first two and forgets the third. When that first happened to me some months ago, I swore that in future I would say that I had a number of points to make. That way, I would not have to number them and forget what my second or third point was. One can also then talk a little longer and hope that the point comes back to one, and it just has.
	My other point, apart from the Joint Committee aspect, is that the provision relates to marriages by registrar in a registry office. There is no such requirement in relation to marriages in other areas of our national life—just in relation to the Church of England—and that is a little difference that we perhaps need to look into.
	I am very tempted to tell the House the story of the bigamist whom I had to put in prison five years ago, but that, I am afraid, is for another night.

Des Browne: I have a number of points to make, and if I talk long enough I may remember them.The Government's position is, of course, to agree to the Lords amendment and—in due course, I shall come to the reasons why—to disagree to the Opposition amendments.
	This last, extensive group of amendments covers a wide range of changes made to the Bill in another place and, of course, the Opposition amendments relating to marriage procedures, to which I will respond in some detail in a moment.
	The amendments to clause 2 provide greater clarity on the defences available to someone who commits the offence of being without an immigration document at a leave or asylum interview. Those amendments respond to debates both here and in another place and put beyond doubt our intention to target only those who have destroyed or disposed of their immigration documents, not those who have never had one.
	The amendments to clause 9 extend immigration officers' powers to provide a power of arrest without warrant and ancillary powers of entry, search and seizure in respect of several human trafficking offences, including the new offence of trafficking people for exploitation under clause 4. Amendment No. 32 creates a new right of appeal against bail decisions made by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. These amendments enjoyed cross-party support when they were considered by their lordships.
	Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 would allow for the electronic monitoring of certain individuals for whom bail was granted by the SIAC. Having reviewed the matter in the light of events since the Bill was introduced—in particular, the comments made by the Newton committee following its review of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, and SIAC's decision to grant bail in an individual case—we concluded that although electronic monitoring may not be appropriate in every case, it might be a useful tool in certain circumstances.
	Clause 23 was subject to two minor Government amendments in another place, and both were welcomed. First, the definition of the "material" that the commissioner can seize was narrowed by preventing him from seizing "excluded" and "special procedure" material as defined by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. That was done in the light of concerns expressed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The commissioner accepted that such material was of no value to his investigators.
	Secondly, it was agreed to delete references to a justice of the peace in Scotland. That followed several Opposition amendments to that effect and representations from the Law Society of Scotland.
	In response to a recommendation from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and points raised throughout the Bill's passage, we brought back an amendment to strengthen safeguards to clause 27, which provides for levying fees. Amendment No. 39 provides, first, that prior to the introduction of a fee under this power the Secretary of State shall consult appropriate persons, and secondly, that an order made under this power shall be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, requiring approval by both Houses of Parliament. The remaining amendments are minor and/or consequential to other amendments.
	I come to the substantive amendments introduced by the Government in another place on marriage procedures, and the amendments moved by the Opposition today. As has already been said in this short debate, under section 24 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 registrars are obliged to report suspected sham marriages to the Home Office. Section 24 came into force in 2001. Since then, as we heard, reports have been increasing in number—in the first year, there were 756 reports, increasing to 1,205 in 2002 and 2,700 in 2003. This evidence, taken together with growing anecdotal and other evidence, shows that there has been a considerable increase in the number of marriages taking place in the United Kingdom where there is no intention of entering into a genuine relationship, but where the purpose is solely to circumvent our immigration control.
	Hon. Members may ask whether the evidence is strong enough to justify intervention, given the inconvenience that intervention may cause to genuine couples wishing to marry. As I am sure the House will appreciate, this is an area where it is difficult to collect hard evidence on the scale of abuse. The Government consider that the clear trend in reports from registrars, together with discussions that we have had with them on the subject—since my appointment at the beginning of April, I have met registrars and their representatives twice—and other intelligence sources fully justify such intervention.
	We have already acted in the face of those reports. In the last financial year, immigration enforcement teams in London alone carried out operations at more than 60 weddings, resulting in the arrest of 110 individuals, most of whom were either removed from the United Kingdom as illegal immigrants or, in the case of 37 of the 110 arrested, were charged with criminal offences.

Mark Oaten: Given that the new powers have been in operation for about two years and seem to have had some initial success in terms of the number of arrests, did the Minister consider seeing how that pattern of progress would develop over the next couple of years, rather than introducing a new measure?

Des Browne: I did precisely that, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to bring forward a part of my speech that I had intended to come to later. The other evidence suggested to me that enforcement, such as it was, was effective where it could take place, but had no prospect of covering the possibilities for abuse across England and Wales or, indeed, across the United Kingdom. There were not enough immigration officers to do that.
	Against the background of a 35 per cent. increase in the number of immigration officers in the employ of the immigration service under the present Government, it did not seem appropriate to prioritise the marriage issue as a use of that resource when it was needed for other purposes if there were processes whereby such abuse could be dealt with and interdicted.
	It may be helpful to tell the House at this stage that the purpose of the changes is not to create the opportunity for intervention at 2,700 or thereabouts events, but to interdict them from taking place at all. It is a matter of deterrence. Hon. Members and others who criticise these steps, which I think are entirely sensible, ought to understand that. Evidence suggests that if the behaviour is deterred, it will go away. If it is policed, it will displace. In other words, the people involved will not come to the places where they expect immigration officers to be, but will displace to other venues. If one accepts that analysis of the evidence—it clearly is the right analysis and it is shared by the registrars, the local authorities, the police, the immigration service and the Home Office—one can see that the combination of factors that I am about to explain in more detail is exactly the right approach to deal with the problem.

Mark Oaten: I understand the Minister's argument that it is better to prevent these events from happening than to use resources to tackle the problems once they have occurred, but will not considerable resources will be involved in checking whether these are sham marriages?

Des Browne: Perhaps I should have stuck to the script that I had originally prepared on this issue. However, to borrow a phrase from "Mastermind", I have started, so I will finish. I think that the hon. Gentleman understands the analysis of the evidence and the reasoning behind the Government's choice of this method. The point that I am making is that the success or failure of these provisions will be gauged by whether they deter this behaviour. I do not expect—and I am certainly not going to put resources into—a whole series of interventions into sham or potentially sham marriages. I have every confidence that these provisions will stop people seeking to go down that route to change their status under the immigration rules, and I shall explain why.
	We have recognised that this is an increasing problem, and that it demands a heightened response. On 22 April, the Home Secretary announced a major new enforcement effort to target sham marriages and the people who organise them, who are just as much a target of this process as the individuals involved in the marriages. As a result, the immigration service arrested 60 people in May alone, and has made further arrests since. Those figures are intended to show the scale of a problem—as the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) sought to do earlier—in which immigration offenders see the abuse of United Kingdom marriage laws as an easy way to get around immigration controls.

Humfrey Malins: I hope that the Minister will comment on my view that the Home Office's performance in relation to the section 24 notices in 2001, 2002 and 2003—indeed, up to two or three months ago—was, at best, patchy and, according to the registrar, probably very poor indeed. Does the Minister agree with that?

Des Browne: When speaking in public, I have consistently made it a rule not to comment on anonymous comments. I do not doubt that the hon. Gentleman has a good source for those observations, but they are still anonymous and, as a matter of practice, I do not intend to comment on them. I spent the best part of 25 years in the west of Scotland practising law and constantly being told by people that they had good authority for what they were telling me was the law of Scotland. Often, when I asked them what that authority was, they said that it was either The Sunday Post—a publication that came out on a Sunday in Scotland—or a man they had met in the pub. I am not in a position to evaluate third party comments about the performance of the Home Office when I do not have the details of that performance.
	I am able to tell the hon. Gentleman, however, that the immigration and nationality directorate, the immigration service—which is part of the IND—my fellow Ministers in the Home Office and the Secretary of State are seized of this issue, and are absolutely persuaded that it can be dealt with partly by enforcement and partly by changing the rules on the formalities of marriage. That is what we are proposing to do in the Bill, and it is exactly the right way to deal with this issue.
	It was suggested in another place that the increase in reports of sham marriages was due solely to the increased enforcement effort. Concentrated enforcement in particular areas of behaviour highlights the extent of that behaviour and tends to suggest that it has increased when, in fact, it was always there. When the crime figures come out, I am always amused by observations about increases in drug crime in a particular area, for example. If we take into account that there is no drug crime until it is detected, the increases are normally a reflection of improved policing in that area. They do not mean that the drug crime was not always there.
	I can assure my hon. Friends that it was not the enforcement that increased the number of sham marriages that were taking place, or, indeed, the number of reports of such marriages. Wherever the hon. Member for Woking got his information from, he was right to point out to the House that we did not intensify our enforcement efforts prior to an increase in section 24 reports; we intensified them because we had already seen the reports increase in number.
	As well as seeing an increase in overall numbers of allegedly sham marriages being reported, we are seeing a shift in the kinds of case being reported towards cases where the marriage sponsor is a non-British European economic area national. In fact, 61 per cent. of the section 24 reports received by the immigration service in May involved a non-British EEA national. Why should that be the case? It is because anyone marrying an EEA national does not need to obtain leave to remain in the UK, as a separate step, on the basis of their marriage. As a direct consequence of the marriage, they have an automatic right of residence.
	That is because the rights of residence obtained through marriage to an EEA national are the subject of European law rather than United Kingdom domestic legislation. European law dictates that anyone marrying an EEA national who is exercising treaty rights in another country—this goes for someone marrying a British national exercising treaty rights in Spain or France, for example—thereby has the right to reside in that country irrespective of their immigration status at the time of marriage.
	It is clear that where there is abuse of our existing immigration controls, we must move to stop it. We must ensure that our immigration rules are robust enough to prevent people from using sham marriages to get around those rules. That kind of abuse works to the detriment of everybody—including, of course, those who enter this country legally through the managed migration channels. The evidence, albeit necessarily having imprecisions, clearly shows growing abuse. That evidence, along with the Government's clear duty to stop such abuse, is the counter-argument to the view of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that these provisions are disproportionate to what it accepts is the legitimate aim of preventing sham marriages.
	Britain has always rightly prided itself on being a comparatively liberal society in respect of the laws surrounding marriage and other similar civil acts. Broadly speaking, we have been happy to leave the policing of this aspect of the law to professional registrars or churches. They do this with a comparatively light touch, and with little interference from central Government. We are committed to retaining that overall balance, but it is the duty of the Government to act to protect the integrity of the institution of marriage, and the balance between light-touch regulation and rules to prevent abuse will sometimes have to change to cope with the challenges and realities of today's world. Not only is that the view of the Government, it is the view powerfully expressed by registrars themselves. As I say, I have met them on more than one occasion to talk through those issues.
	I have already set out how the immigration service has responded to the challenge of increasing evidence of abuse by stepping up its enforcement effort, but we have to accept that enforcement alone cannot solve the problem completely. Sending immigration officers to register offices has real impact, as we have seen in the last year, but we cannot rule out the possibility of displacement to other offices, and it would be unrealistic and disproportionate to have staff attending every single wedding.
	Similarly, while it is possible for the immigration service to follow up marriages and to try to establish whether they are genuine and persisting, it is an extremely resource-intensive process and, as the law stands, the burden of proof lies with the Government to show that the marriage is not genuine, which is not always easy. The better solution is therefore to make it more difficult to enter into a sham marriage in the first place—indeed, to make people feel that there is no point even in trying. The amendments that the Government support in this group are intended to do just that.
	Existing marriage legislation in England and Wales requires that, where a marriage is intended to be solemnised on the authority of certificates of a superintendent registrar, the parties to the prospective marriage must first give notice of that marriage to such a registrar. The amendments that the House is considering today build on that position and have been worked through in close co-operation with the registrars.
	Subsection (2) of the proposed new clause in Lords amendment No. 21 requires that where a marriage involves a non-EEA national, both parties will be required to give notice of their wedding to the superintendent registrar of a designated registration centre. I must make it clear that that requirement will not restrict a couple from eventually getting married. It applies only where they give notice of that marriage. Once the notice has been accepted, the couple will be free to get married wherever they wish. The provisions will not infringe a person's ability to get married in a church, in a local mosque or, indeed, anywhere else that they wish to wed.

Mark Oaten: Will there be a requirement for the individuals to go to the designated areas, or could the process be carried out by post? If there is a requirement to go in person, how many designated areas will there be?

Des Browne: There will be a requirement for people to attend in person. A good amendment, consistent with Government policy, was tabled in the Lords, which requires the attendance of both parties before the registrar. I shall come to that in a moment. Although no definitive decisions have been taken, I am considering the possibility of about 70 such areas about the country, which I think will be enough to satisfy the needs of the people who wish to be married.
	Restricting the capacity to authorise such a wedding to a reduced number of designated centres will allow the immigration service to implement its enforcement effort in a more concentrated area and allow intelligence and expertise on marriage abuse to be built up in designated centres. It is not just that registrars, whether properly trained or not, can see that something dodgy is going on in front of them, as the hon. Members for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) and for Woking suggested. It is pretty obvious if the bride and groom have never met—perhaps because the bride arrives 10 minutes early and does not know whom she is marrying—or if money changes hands in the back of the register office.
	Part of the enforcement effort, however, is about building up intelligence to allow those who are behind the process to be revealed and brought before the courts for the criminal offences that they are perpetrating. We do not want to inconvenience genuine couples any more than is absolutely necessary, and I and my officials are working closely with registrars to identify the most suitable number of designated centres to assist in the enforcement effort while minimising the inconvenience caused. At the moment, we are considering the possibility of about 70 such centres, as I said.
	In line with an amendment suggested by Baroness Anelay, parties to a marriage will be required to give notice of their marriage together at the designated centres. That will give registrars the fullest possible opportunity to identify any suspicious behaviour, such as how couples interact—the kind of behaviour that currently leads registrars to report couples under section 24. The crucial difference under the new provisions is that registrars and the immigration service will be better able to take appropriate action before the couple can wed.
	Subsection (3) of the new clause requires that before notice of marriage involving a non-EEA national can be entered into the marriage book, the superintendent registrar must be satisfied by the provision of specified evidence that the non-EEA national has entry clearance for the purpose of marriage, has written permission from the Home Secretary, or is in an exempt category.
	The requirement in new subsection (3)(a) to have entry clearance expressly for the purpose of marrying refers to entry clearance for fiancés and marriage visitors. Applications for such entry clearance will continue to be considered in the usual way under paragraphs 290 and 41 respectively of the immigration rules. It is envisaged that written permission from the Secretary of State, as provided in new subsection (3)(b), will normally be granted if a person has been granted more than six months leave since entering the United Kingdom and where that leave is extant. In addition, we would grant an application if it is considered that it would be unreasonable to expect a person to return home or travel abroad and apply for entry clearance.
	The written permission will be known as a certificate of approval and all applications will be considered and determined in accordance with published guidance, which will set out the factors to be taken into account by caseworkers when determining such applications. If an application for a certificate of approval is refused, applicants will be free to challenge the decision in judicial review proceedings—for example, on the well understood and well known Wednesbury ground of unreasonableness.
	New subsection (3)(c) confers on the Secretary of State the power to exempt in regulations categories of person from the requirement for entry clearance or for Home Office permission. We have not included those categories in the Bill as we think that secondary legislation would be a more suitable vehicle for introducing the exemptions, allowing full opportunity to consider changes in trends and future changes to the immigration rules. However, at this point we envisage that any person with settled status in the United Kingdom will be exempted under the provision.
	As a result of the new measures, we would expect an increase in the number of forged documents being presented to registrars—both in respect of the new certificate of approval to be issued by the Home Office and in respect of documents confirming nationality—as those engaged in sham marriages seek to avoid having to apply to the Home Office for a certificate of approval.
	After three months of experience as a Minister in the Home Office, I doubt very much whether there is any organisation better placed than the immigration service of the United Kingdom to identify forgeries. Those in the service have developed expertise in that area over the past number of years that is second to none. UK immigration officers with that expertise are now travelling the world, helping other immigration services to identify forged documents.
	I am grateful to the hon. Member for Woking for his suggestion, but he can rest assured that, given the experience that we have in the Home Office and in the immigration service of how to combat forgeries, it was always our intention that the permission document would contain several security features. We intend that it will be granted in the form of a vignette. That will contain the same security features as our leave-to-remain vignettes, and will be equally secure. I am not sure at the moment whether it will have a specific identifying number, but it will have significant security features. Registrars at designated centres who do not have the ability at present will be trained to identify those documents, including fake EEA documents, and will be well placed to gain experience in identifying them.
	I want to make it very clear that the Government do not intend the new provisions to lead to a return to the rightly unpopular primary purpose rule. The principal objective of that rule was to attempt to judge whether the applicant was entering into marriage primarily to gain the right to reside in the United Kingdom. People get married for many different reasons, and it is not the Government's business to interfere in what those reasons are. The new provisions are not designed to do that, but they are designed to interfere with attempted avoidance of immigration control. They do not affect the grant or refusal of entry clearance, as the primary purpose rule did. They are simply intended to make it more difficult for those who are seeking to enter into a marriage for the purpose of avoiding immigration control so to do.
	Hon. Members may be aware of the concerns of others that the new requirements are unnecessary in the light of existing provisions. The new requirements in subsection (3) of Lords amendment No. 21 are designed to prevent persons who are illegally in the UK, or in the UK on a short-term basis, from marrying where it is reasonable to expect them to return home and to apply for appropriate entry clearance.
	Provisions in paragraph 284 of the immigration rules, as amended by the Government in April last year, require that anyone applying for leave to remain on the grounds of a marriage to a British citizen or a person settled here must themselves have extant leave to remain in the UK, and must either have entered as a fiancé or have been granted at least six months' leave since the date they were admitted to the United Kingdom. Where a person does not meet those criteria, they are expected to leave the UK and apply for entry clearance as a spouse.
	The provision does not, however, apply to spouses of EEA nationals exercising treaty rights in the UK. In those cases, it is the act of marriage that gives a right of residence. As I have already stated, those marrying an EEA national do not need separately to obtain leave to remain on the basis of that marriage. They get that automatically. That is because the right of residence obtained through a marriage to an EEA national is the subject of European law, not domestic law.
	The new provisions have been framed to apply both to those wishing to marry British citizens, and to those wishing to marry other EEA nationals. It is not unusual for a person to have dual status in the UK as both an EEA national and a person settled here under the immigration rules—Irish nationals being a prime example of that. If we were to apply the new provisions only to those persons marrying EEA nationals, we would leave the system open to abuse. The intended spouses of persons who hold such dual immigration status would be free to present themselves as the fiancé of a person with settled status in the UK, forgoing the requirements applying to EEA nationals, but then as soon as they were married they would automatically gain the right to reside in the UK as the spouse of an EEA national.
	Moreover, we do not believe that we are placing too great a burden on the intended spouses of British citizens by requiring that they have more than six months' leave or entry clearance as a fiancé. Under paragraph 284 of the immigration rules, they are already required to meet that requirement in order to apply for leave to remain. The new provisions require simply that they provide for that in advance of their marriage, rather than in advance of their leave to remain application.

Mark Oaten: In connection with burden and fairness, the Minister has said nothing about the additional costs that might be involved in going through the new procedure. Is he in a position to outline those extra costs?

Des Browne: I shall come to that shortly.
	If a person would not otherwise have intended to remain in the UK after their marriage, they would be free to apply for leave to enter as a visitor for the purpose of marriage. There is no unnecessary restriction on such persons.
	By refusing permission to marry to those persons with less than six months' leave in the UK, we will prevent non-EEA nationals from legally entering the UK on a short-term basis, only for them then to enter into a sham marriage with an EEA national and thereby gain the right to stay in the UK. If a person is entering the UK for the purpose of marriage, the Government expect them to apply for entry clearance as a fiancé or marriage visitor. To answer the hon. Gentleman's question directly, it will cost people no more to do that than to go through the proper channels. Likewise, if a person enters as a visitor and subsequently meets someone whom they wish to marry, we do not believe that it is unreasonable for them to return home and apply for suitable entry clearance, given that their initial leave was granted on the ground that they would do precisely that—return home when it expired.
	Concerns were expressed in another place about the prospect of registrars being turned into pseudo-immigration officers. I assure hon. Members that the Government have no intention of creating such a burden. By requiring non-EEA nationals to have either entry clearance as a fiancé or marriage visitor, a certificate of approval, or indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom, we are precisely limiting that burden on registrars. For that reason, we do not believe it would be sensible, as was suggested in the report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, automatically to exempt all persons who meet the criteria required for certificates of approval under subsection (3)(c). It would be unreasonable and potentially unworkable to expect registrars to inspect the passports of all non-EEA nationals giving notice of a marriage for valid leave to remain, as that would require registrars to become familiar with every stamp, every vignette and every category of leave to remain. By creating the requirement for persons to apply first to the Home Office for a certificate of approval or to hold entry clearance for the purpose of marriage, we have considerably reduced that burden.
	At this stage, let me deal with two further objections made by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The Committee suggested that the proposals might be vulnerable to accusations of discriminating, first, on the ground of nationality, and secondly—by virtue of exempting Church of England marriages—on the ground of religion. Each accusation lacks adequate and objective justification. As Lord Rooker made clear on Report in another place on 28 June, we are not seeking to discriminate against people who are members of a religion other than the Church of England.
	There is no evidence of sham marriages taking place in the Church of England and the Government do not feel that abuse is likely in future. People who wish to marry in their parish church are normally known to the priest of the church. Although it is not a statutory requirement, there is an expectation upon couples to meet the priest to talk through why they wish to marry and to discuss church proceedings. The Government believe that that acts as a real disincentive to parties intending to engage in a sham marriage, and that it will continue to do so. The Marriage Registration Act 1836 provides for marriage in the Church of England and the Church in Wales to take place after either ecclesiastical preliminaries or civil preliminaries. The vast majority of Anglican marriages take place after ecclesiastical preliminaries—banns or common licence. All other marriages, whether civil or by other religious rites, must be preceded by civil preliminaries. The discrimination is therefore not new: that has been the position since the 1836 Act introduced civil marriage and civil preliminaries, and the Government do not feel that it is appropriate or necessary to change the position at this time.
	As for the suggestion that the provisions discriminate on the ground of nationality, the crucial point is that the provisions are expressly aimed not at people of a certain nationality or nationalities, but at people who use marriage as a means of circumventing immigration control. Although we accept that we are treating persons who are subject to immigration control and their partners differently from other persons wishing to get married, it would be unlawful and disproportionate to impose such obligations on those couples where neither party is subject to immigration control, because there is no rational connection between the measures and those who are simply not subject to immigration control.
	Lords amendments Nos. 23 and 25 contain broadly similar provisions for Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively. As there has been far less evidence of abuse in Scotland and Northern Ireland, these amendments have been drafted so that written notification of a marriage in Scotland and Ireland will continue to be an acceptable format. However, we will nevertheless require evidence under subsection (3) of the new clauses by way of a certificate of approval or otherwise, as is the case in England and Wales.
	If there is evidence that the problem is being displaced to Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State will introduce the power laid down in subsection (2)(b) of amendment No. 25 and both parties will be required to attend the centres together in prescribed cases.
	Scotland has a growing and lucrative marriage tourism industry, in which couples travel to Scotland as visitors to get married in scenic surroundings, with no intention to remain in the UK thereafter. The Government do not wish to jeopardise this industry and so we will not require persons to attend the centres in person, as is the case elsewhere in the UK. If there is evidence of abuse, the Scottish General Register Officer will move swiftly to designate register offices according to subsection (2) of amendment No. 23.
	Lords amendment No. 27 grants the Secretary of State the power, by regulations, to charge fees for applications for written permission to marry in the UK. These applications will be charged for on a cost-recovery basis. Although we are not yet in a position to put an exact figure on this charge, we estimate that it will be similar to the charges for leave-to-remain applications. Applications for entry clearance as a fiancé and marriage visitor will continue to be charged at £260 and £36 respectively.
	I will deal briefly with the amendments tabled by the official Opposition. Under amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 21, parties to a marriage involving a non-EEA national would be able to give notice of a marriage in a designated centre only if they had been resident in that registration district for 14 days, rather than seven as at present. The Government do not feel that such a requirement is necessary. We do not believe that any purpose would be served by increasing this period and cannot support the amendment.
	Amendment (c) to Lords amendment No. 21 would require superintendent registrars in England and Wales to maintain a record of refusals of notices by non-EEA nationals. Registrars would not accept notification of a marriage if they could not enter it into the marriage notice book. They would not be able to accept a notification unless the person met all the criteria—age, residence and marital status, for example. Only when those criteria were not met would a registrar not take notice of the marriage, and this is a question of an inability to do so rather than a refusal on their part. In this sense, registrars are not actually capable of refusing to accept notice of a marriage. Keeping a record of everyone who approaches a registrar but does not meet the criteria would prove to be a time-consuming task and would not help in combating sham marriages. For these reasons I will not be able to support the amendment. I hope that hon. Members will feel able to withdraw their amendments.
	I do not feel that I need to summarise what I have had to say. I will close by reiterating my position, which is that the House agrees with the Lords on Government amendments Nos. 1 to 21 and 22 to 69 but disagrees with the Opposition amendments (a) and (c) to Lords amendment No. 21.

Humfrey Malins: This has been a useful debate and I am grateful to the Minister for the careful way in which he has explained the Government's position. However, there are one or two matters that I hope to draw to his attention. Despite his full and helpful reply, I had hoped that he might have thought that there was a little merit in my amendment concerning 14 days. If there is not much point in 14 days, it is worth asking what is the point of seven days. I assume that the purpose of seven days is to—

Des Browne: It is existing law.

Humfrey Malins: Quite; it is existing law. Somebody at some stage in the past must have justified seven days. I suppose that they did so on the basis that it is important that there be a residence requirement.
	I think that we all agree that there should be a residence requirement. I thought that it would be quite a good thing to strengthen the requirement by making it 14 days. The Minister rightly pointed out, and perhaps he will confirm that I am right, that in the Church of England, where two parties wish to get married, one of them at least has to demonstrate quite a substantial link with the parish concerned—indeed, not just a link but a residence. My father is a vicar, and I am not entirely sure that any inquiry into the validity of my own marriage—he married my wife and me—would be productive. I remember that there was some strict residence requirement, and my father may have had to finesse the position very slightly. It was a long time ago, however, and I would not want to get him into trouble. [Interruption.] I probably just did so, but that is another question.
	It came to my notice recently—I do not expect the Minister to deal with this point now—that once a marriage licence is granted, it is valid for one year. That strikes me as quite a long time, and I wonder whether the Home Office would consider taking a look at that issue.
	The Minister's comments about the permission document and the watermarks, holograms and so on were very helpful. There are undoubtedly experts in the Home Office who will draw up some procedure that is as near to watertight as possible. I hope that he might pat me on the back for my personal idea of the unique serial number specific to a particular application.

Des Browne: I reassure the hon. Gentleman that, if we decide to number the certificates of approval, I shall ensure that he is given the credit for that very unusual suggestion.

Humfrey Malins: Such is the Minister's charm at the Dispatch Box this evening that my hon. Friends and I, who were determined at one stage to test the opinion of the House on a number of amendments, have been persuaded by his arguments that it might not be appropriate to do so.
	This has been a good debate, dealing with a problem to which I think the Government are attending. I wish them good luck in doing so, and I hope that they will involve a number of parties in the discussions. The clause was amended in another place, and it is now a good one. Apart from my 14-day proposal, even I can think of no way of improving it.
	I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Lords amendment No. 21 agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 22 to 27, 19, 20, 32, 40, 41, 33, 34, 1 to 13, 35 to 39 and 63 to 69 agreed to.

Patents Bill [Lords] (Programme) (No. 2)

Stephen Timms: I beg to move,
	That the programme order of 7th June 2004 in relation to the Patents Bill [Lords] be varied as follows—
	Consideration and Third Reading
	1. Paragraphs 4 and 5 (consideration and Third Reading) shall be omitted.
	2. Proceedings on consideration and Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 1.30 p.m. on the day on which they are commenced.
	The motion amends the allocation of time for proceedings on consideration and Third Reading of the Patents Bill set by the programme order of 7 June, and it is a small, technical measure that commands widespread support on both sides of the House.
	In order to enable the Bill smoothly to complete its passage, time has been found this Wednesday to take the remaining stages in the House. The motion therefore deletes the relevant paragraphs of the earlier motion relating to the allocation of time for proceedings on consideration and Third Reading and makes new provision consistent with the time available on Wednesday. I hope that those arrangements will command widespread support on both sides of the House. The motion is set out on the Order Paper, and I will not rehearse its content. It curtails the allocation of time for consideration on Report and Third Reading provided by the programme order of 7 June, and it is my pleasure to commend it to the House.
	Question put and agreed to.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Northern Ireland

That the draft Solicitors (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 24th June, be approved.—[Mr. Heppell.]
	Question agreed to.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Immigration

That the draft Immigration (Provision of Physical Data) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2004, which were laid before this House on 10th June, be approved.—[Charlotte Atkins.]
	Question agreed to.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6)(Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Consumer Protection

That the draft Tobacco Advertising and Promotion (Brandsharing) Regulations 2004, which were laid before this House on 26th May, be approved.—[Charlotte Atkins.]
	Question agreed to.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Social Security

That the draft Social Security (Income Support and Jobseeker's Allowance) Amendment Regulations 2004, which were laid before this House on 16th June, be approved.—[Charlotte Atkins.]
	Question agreed to.

EXAMINATION OF CLASSICS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Charlotte Atkins.]

Michael Fallon: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the subject of the examination of classics tonight and for the support of some 37 colleagues from all parties who have signed early-day motion 1434.
	The subject may initially appear to be an administrative matter but it raises important questions about the accountability of examination boards, the survival of minority subjects other than Latin and Greek and the genuine meaning of choice in our education system.
	Britain's biggest exam board, the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance—AQA—has announced that it will no longer examine Latin and Greek at GCSE and A-level after 2006. In other words, those who start in September on GCSE or A-level Latin and Greek will be the last to be examined in two years' time. That deplorable decision was made without warning, without consultation with schools or university classics departments and even without consulting the board's subject advisory panel. My first question to the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg), whom I welcome, is whether he joins me in condemning that lack of consultation. It is not enough for the Department for Education and Skills simply to say, as the Under-Secretary's colleague said in another place, that the lack of consultation did not go unnoticed. Will he join me in condemning that lack of consultation?
	The decision appears to have been made without any real opportunity for appeal or accountability. In that sense, the exam boards appear to be masters in their own house, and beyond the effective supervision of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which is answerable to Ministers. My second question is therefore: is the Under-Secretary satisfied that the QCA properly supervised and approved the decision? On what date were Ministers informed of it?
	The accountability of exam boards matters because, unlike in the old days, when five, six or more existed, there are now effectively only two: the AQA and the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations board—the OCR. If one board drops a subject, it becomes de facto a monopoly of the other. There is therefore no more choice in the syllabus. That is especially important for minority subjects because they have no fixed place in the curriculum and they, unlike those that are specified in the curriculum, need syllabuses with greater, not less variety. If the AQA no longer offers Latin and Greek, we face the prospect of the OCR syllabus having to be adapted to offer what the former previously offered. Everybody loses out.
	The problem does not affect only Latin and Greek. At the same time as the decision was announced, other subjects were chopped from the AQA list. They include: accounting, archaeology, Russian, home economics, social science and European studies. Some 11 subjects were chopped from the AQA list without warning or opportunity to appeal.
	The point of the larger boards that have consolidated and taken over smaller boards is that they should be able to cross-subsidise some of the minority subjects. Of course, those subjects, by their nature, do not apply to hundreds of thousands of entrants every year. However, a big board—the AQA is the biggest board of all—should be able to accept some cross-subsidy in examining subjects with smaller intakes. It should also be more careful about making decisions such as that that we are considering. Indeed, the AQA's justification for dropping Latin and Greek is worthy of examination. It said:
	"Most centres entering for Greek also enter candidates for Latin, so to withdraw Greek only would have a significant effect on the entry for Latin."
	It believes that that justifies scrapping both. If it has not properly consulted, how does it know? Why scrap both until it is absolutely sure?
	Unlike those in relation to the other minority subjects that I have mentioned—Russian, accounting, European studies and so on—this decision by the AQA will have one very serious consequence for our education system: the AQA syllabus for Latin and Greek is used predominantly by state schools. More than 80 per cent. of Greek entries and more than 50 per cent. of Latin entries are from state schools. That is because the AQA syllabus is better designed for those who may come to the classics later, after the age of 13, and who may lack a previous grounding in the vocabulary required.
	To give the Minister a specific example, for candidates for GCSE Greek, the OCR board demands knowledge of some 625 Greek words, against 350 required by the AQA. The OCR sets some 360 lines of text to be examined, against the AQA's number of 250. The OCR board requires twice as much prose as the AQA board. Therefore, if the two syllabuses are to be merged, the OCR syllabus would have to be significantly weakened, which in turn would disadvantage those who study it for longer.
	Let the Minister be in no doubt: this mean-minded decision by the AQA will drive classics out of the state schools altogether, and confine Latin and Greek to the fee-paying sector. Is he content to see that happen? That has occurred at a time when all parties in the House have been repeating the mantra of more choice in education. It is at a time when the Government want all secondary schools to be free to specialise, to give their own emphasis to different aspects of the curriculum, and to favour minority subjects, whether music, arts or sport, and so on. Denying the choice of those two minority subjects, Latin and Greek, which it is possible for students to begin later, is a crime against our state schools.
	One only has to consider the success of courses such as the wonderful Minimus to see the expansion of interest in the classics, sustained by films such as "Troy" "Gladiator", "Boudicca" and now "Alexander the Great". One only has to note that some 17,000 students are now studying one aspect of classics or another at our universities to see the damage that this decision will do to the survival of classics in our state schools.
	I do not need to re-emphasise the importance of Latin and Greek in this Chamber tonight, or to mount some spurious claim for relevance: we are not discussing the disappearance of Hebrew from the curriculum or the ending of rhetoric in the mediaeval trivium. As well as the intellectual discipline that lies behind the two subjects, Latin and Greek are keys as much to our present as they are to our past—to how we got here, our heritage, our common European culture and our literature and art. Without Latin and Greek, and particularly without them in our state schools, our understanding of everything else, from Shakespeare to medieval painting, is limited and reduced.

Tim Loughton: I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said. I must declare an interest as someone who achieved a Latin A-level at a state school and went on to read for a classics degree. Does he agree that it is ironic that at the same time as we are seeing an explosion in popular interest in some of the classical stories through film and other media, and when Ofsted is saying that we should return to some of the traditional studies in history, teaching in traditional subjects such as Latin and Greek, which have enormous relevance to so many different areas, is to be constrained within the state system?
	It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment lapsed, without Question put.
	Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Charlotte Atkins.]

Michael Fallon: I entirely agree. Indeed, my hon. Friend's example is all the more perturbing, given that he studied classics at a state school. This proposal means that a future generation will not be able to enjoy that particular privilege.
	Without the foundation of Latin and Greek in most of our schools, we are in danger of raising the lexical bar, that most pervasive form of discrimination. It is just as serious, in a way, as racial or sexual discrimination. I refer to linguistic discrimination against those who cannot express themselves articulately or write correctly in their own language, and are thus denied, when applying for employment or other courses, the opportunities that they ought to be able to enjoy.
	Unless reversed, this philistine decision will reduce choice in our schools. It will certainly eradicate all Latin and Greek from our state school system. Moreover, if it is accepted without protest, it will threaten any other minority subject—not just Russian, but the other harder languages—and it will, I believe, leave too much of the curriculum in the hands of a single examination board.
	Monopoly in education is a very dangerous thing. I commend to the Minister the words of Symmachus, praefect of Rome:
	"Uno itinere non potest pervenire ad tam grande secretum."
	That can be translated as "It is not possible to attain such a great secret by one route only". And that is the argument for avoiding monopoly in education.
	It is the way in which the decision was made, and the consequences that it will have, that justify our description of it as an act of educational vandalism. But I believe that it is almost worse than that. It is, I think, an omen of a darkening cultural winter. The path of learning needs many lamps, and in two years another lamp will have been extinguished. That deeper understanding of our past and our present will be further confined to the privileged and paid-for few. I cannot believe that that is something that the present Government would welcome, or indeed that they would stand idly by without intervening.
	I do not think it is enough simply to say, as the Minister's colleague Lady Ashton did in another place, that the lack of consultation
	"has not gone unnoticed within the department."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 June 2004; Vol. 663, c. 6.]
	That is not enough. We now look to the Minister to explain what he can do to help get this deplorable decision reviewed and reversed.

Stephen Twigg: I congratulate the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon) on securing this important debate. Let me begin by rising to his challenge. He asked whether I was content, and the Government were content, for classics to be driven out of the state sector. I want to put it on record that I certainly would not be content for that to happen.
	I want to say something about Latin and Greek as subjects in the maintained school sector. It is widely accepted that it is important for schools to offer a broad and balanced education, providing appropriate opportunities for students to enjoy all aspects of the curriculum. For that reason, I am very glad that some state schools choose to offer classical subjects where the demand exists and where teaching staff have the necessary skills. I recall a visit last year to Archbishop Tenison's school, an inner-city school in the London borough of Lambeth with a predominantly black intake. The teenage boys there were taking Latin at lunchtime by choice. I took that as an excellent example of the keen response that will occur where such options are available.
	Following some of the key stage 3 online pilots that the Department funded, Granada Learning developed the Cambridge Latin course e-learning resource, which was launched in May. It is an innovative resource that is designed to help both specialist and non-specialist teachers to teach Latin to key stage 3 pupils. It can also be used independently, with the help of an e-tutor service provided by the Cambridge school classics project. The resources contain media-rich content to engage the learner and feature a lesson planning system that allows teachers to select learning activities in sequence.
	The hon. Gentleman referred to the "Minimus Mouse" cartoon teaching book, which is aimed at 10 to 13-year-olds. Indications are that it has seriously revived interest in Latin among some younger pupils. The first book sold about 50,000 copies world wide and a sequel was published in March this year. It is of course important not only that pupils have the opportunity to learn these subjects, but that their learning be recognised through the examination system. That should include the minority subjects in the various forms that they take.
	The examinations regulator, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, has taken steps to maintain provision in small-entry subjects. For example, it has encouraged the awarding bodies to share small-entry modern foreign languages such as Arabic, Gujarati and Polish between them. Despite this, a number of "live" mother tongue languages that are spoken in this country, or which are being studied in schools or through further education, are not accredited through GCSE examinations. Examples include Kurdish, Somali, Swedish, Hungarian and Slovak. Through the national languages strategy, we are trying to encourage primary schools to teach a wide range of modern foreign languages.
	As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the AQA—Assessment and Qualifications Alliance—recently decided to withdraw Latin and Greek at GCSE and A-level. I want to put it on the record this evening that I am very disappointed by the AQA's decision. I absolutely share his concern about the failure to consult fully and in particular about the failure to consult the subject associations in the field of classics. I was also concerned to hear that the subject committee became aware of the decision only through media coverage. The situation could have been handled much better, and I am sure that the AQA noted the widespread criticism that it received as a result. I shall return to that issue in a moment.
	The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there is little that I can do directly to intervene. Nevertheless, I share the concerns expressed by him and others, particularly with regard to the possible differential effect in the state sector. I urge the AQA to reconsider its decision in respect of classics, a point to which I shall return at the end of my speech.
	My understanding is that the AQA has a minority of candidates taking Latin and Greek, and that that is certainly true of Latin in the state sector: OCR—Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations—has some 59 per cent. of candidates studying Latin GCSE in the maintained sector. Nevertheless, there is an issue of choice, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out very well in his speech. The AQA's argument is that the small number of entries not only raised questions of financial viability, but made it more difficult to set and maintain standards over time. Of course, if the AQA had been the only body offering classical subjects, the QCA would have acted to ensure that they continued to be available, as it would with other minority subjects. The hon. Gentleman made the point powerfully that many state schools prefer the AQA specification because of the differences in emphasis that he described. The advice of the QCA is that there is no reason why that difference should make one specification more demanding than the other, but it is taking the issue seriously.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether changes could be made to the OCR specification. The QCA is in discussions with various relevant bodies, including the classics professional associations, which it will meet shortly. Additionally, OCR has said that it already offers support and guidance to schools and colleges that may wish to change to its specification.
	I emphasise again that I have no direct powers to intervene. The hon. Gentleman and the House would agree that the system that we have makes sense, with regulated but independent awarding bodies taking responsibility for examinations. Nevertheless, I appreciate his concerns and for that reason, on the basis of the case that he and others have made, I am urging the AQA to reconsider its actions. There are good grounds for arguing that there may be a future increase in the number of candidates wanting to study Latin, in particular at GCSE, given the take-up, for example, of the key stage 3 resources to which both he and I referred.
	I assure the hon. Gentleman that, in view of that and the other arguments that he has adduced, I shall write to the AQA to urge it to reconsider its decision, particularly in the light of its failure to consult widely before reaching it. I want to make it very clear that as we pursue more broadly the secondary agenda—and 14 to 19 in particular—as far as I and the Government are concerned, there will still be a very important place for minority subjects, including classics, in the secondary school curriculum.
	I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this important issue. I hope that it will not only contribute to the public debate but perhaps bring about a reconsideration by the AQA of its decision.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at twelve minutes past Ten o'clock.